


The Deep Night

by Anonymous



Series: Winter is Coming [2]
Category: Game Grumps, The Long Dark (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Dead People, Drug Use, F/M, Injury, Suicidal Thoughts, Survival, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-26 01:12:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12545480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: If it's the end of the world, Dan's not ready to give up just yet. He refuses to die until he knows his family is safe, and with that driving him can he survive in the frozen wilderness to achieve that goal?





	1. Pine Point

——

January 10

——

The day the two of us realized rescue really wasn’t coming was hard.

Even though we kept telling ourselves it wasn’t coming, using that to keep ourselves moving forward, thinking we were going to either die or survive on our, there was, always out there, that tiny sliver of hope that someone.

Somewhere.

Would find us.

We’d lived through the death of more people than we could imagine, walked through a frozen hellscape, survived by the skin of our teeth more times than we could count all still believing that someone else would be the ones to swoop in and save us from this nightmare.

There was no if or when we’d be rescued. 

That was gone. 

Those hopes were dead.

Satisfaction came now with the work of living, planning further than tomorrow, becoming the gods of our own destiny.

We returned to the gas station, more cautious now, almost glad to see that it had been undisturbed since our vandalization (and Dan’s petty theft) Walking through the window Dan retrieved the crowbar off of the ground almost sheepishly, fiddling with it while we inspected the small store.

It wasn’t much, a tiny gas station in the middle of nowhere, a display half-filled with snacks, a small shelf of basic toiletries and emergency medical supplies for your basic road trip, from toothpastes, to tylonol, to trojans.  
Everything else was oil and headlamps, overpriced equipment to fix any car misfortunate enough to break down this far out in the middle of nowhere.

The snacks were first on our list. 

It was a regular assortment of gas station fair. Travel sized chips, single serving granola bars, cookies, bags of sweedish fish, and twizzlers. 

The little bags of nuts and trail mixes left me most excited, high calories with actual nutrients in them, alongside the granola bars I knew these would be some of our most important staples for travelling or surviving the winter. The kit-kats and three musketeers would be nothing but calories, small servings of sugar to keep our bodies running but not enough to fill an empty stomach or support our nutritional needs, but they were absolutely better than nothing at all.

Between the two of us I roughly estimated maybe 9 or 10 days worth of food just there, all small enough to be stuffed into our bags not that heavy, the perfect kind of supplies if we were going to be travelling, which really is what snacks like this were designed for.

The toiletries were next. Dental floss was taken, good for backup fishing line if we needed it, painkillers, stomach medication, bandaids. There wasn’t much so it didn’t eat up too much space or weight in our bags. 

Dan reached for another box of condoms giving me an inquisitive look like he wasn’t sure if it was okay for him to make that assumption that he would need them.

My cheeks tinged a little pink but I nodded mumbling “Better safe than sorry.” We’d been doing fine without them up until now, and looking down at the few packages of travel sized feminine hygiene products I realized that my period was really late.

I froze for a second then, the instinctive fear that all women had when theealized the absence of their monthly visitor, that moment of “Oh my god am I?” followed by a mental snort because past our feeble efforts the night before, the last time I had sex was long enough ago I would need to actually sit down and count back the years with a calendar to place it. So unless this really was the apocalypse and I was carrying the born again Jesus, chances were it was the lack of food, an extreme crash in my weight, and the unimaginable stress we were under that thankfully my uterus had gotten the message and decided that it was going on vacation until my shit got sorted.

I swiped a box of tampons just in case because Aunt Flo could be a right bitch sometimes.

Dan was looking at the tiny outdated magazine rack by the cash register, a small collection of Canadian road maps were there that he was pulling out one copy of each to go through later. We didn’t exactly know where we were but if we could even get a hesitant educated guess these maps would be our salvation.

I went behind the counter, looking around for anything useful there, cigarettes, lighters, the bathroom key, nothing of real worth, at least to us.

There was a door connecting the garage to the shop, heading in there wasn’t much in there for us either. Tools, the smell of oil, a space large enough for the tow truck and one other car but it was cold and empty.

Dan went into the back room while I poked around the tool boxes, not knowing what I would find and not really looking for anything when he called out to me.

I was expecting him to have found a stash of food in the back storage.  
Not this.

Plastic tupperwear containers were there, not a lot (then again, what was ‘a lot’ of drugs?) but a few stacked on the desk, some filled with familiar dried green leaves, some filled with white powder, others filled with blue crystals.

I could feel my blood running a little cold.

We’d found the drug dealers money laundering business.

“We should go.” Dan whispered, I’d learned not to question his instinct. I’d learned well through one bad experience to get me to trust his gut more than my own.

Fleeing back to the cabin we still needed more time to go over what we’d found and consider our options with this new information.

I was really being careful with the planning, maybe it was the teacher in me that was conducting this like an experiment, making sure I had my equations correct, every calorie was going to count. I was rarely this anal in the classroom, or maybe I was. Having one set goal or base plan and then being flexible about everything else. 

Make sure we could live.  
???  
Profit.

I set Dan to reading the backs of the snack packages too, needing to figure out how many days we could possibly last on such haphazard supplies.

“I really don’t know how much vitamin C or nutrients a person needs in a day.” I mused, my focus was on calories but I did worry when most of the packages read “Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0%”

Dan gave me wide eyes and shook his head, also having no idea.  
“We’ll have to keep our eyes open for any more wild rose bushes and just keep collecting the hips.” 

I spent the rest of the day pouring over the maps, Dan even getting bored enough with it that he wandered out to try his hand at fishing again.

It was a little hard to do, scouring over the approximated flight route, staring at lakes and roads along the way, the maps were not that detailed, but as long as we could stick to the road it would be good enough, I could recalculate everything once we found a road sign.

Dan came in and I could smell it before he tried to make his catch give me a kiss on the cheek. 

“I swear to god Daniel…” I threatened while he tried to sneak up on me.  
“What? No fishy keeses?”  
“I will fishy kiss you right upside the head.”

He giggled but backed off, moving instead to start grilling.

I joined him and laid out the plan.

If we were where I thought we were and had to walk the entire distance to get to Dan’s parent’s place walking a steady 8 hours every day it would take at best 80 to 100 days to get there.

Dan looked aghast at that timeframe.

“It’s not that bad, so we’ve got like 20 days worth of food in our packs, I mean that’s at most and we’ll be stretching it thin but if we’re around here-“ I indicated to my best guess position on the map, “Or even here-“ There were a few points I had to mark down where we could have been, unfortunately Manitoba was full of lakes surrounded by vast expanses of nothing. “Then it’s one, maybe three days maximum to a town where we can hopefully resupply.”

I didn’t mention the idea of being rescued in one of these places. No that option was no longer on the table.

It was a strange conversation we’d had to come to this point, a lot of strange conversations and maybe a bend in sanity for both of us to get here, to become two people in a world where we couldn’t trust the rest of it.

I didn’t even know how long we’d been out here anymore, sometimes it felt like forever, memories of the time before we fell from the sky and everything ended seemed so long ago.

“We don’t know what it’s like out there and honestly we shouldn’t bank on finding a car. If the power is out then all the cars are going to be frozen solid.” 

Dan listened, cooking his fish, nodding along to my half baked plan which was probably the best shot we were going to get. 

I went to the kitchen letting him digest our options, pulling out some herbs and a bottle of wine, setting the table for our fish dinner, leaving the supplies that were originally supposed to be for tonight to be eaten in the morning for breakfast.

Setting the pan on the table Dan raised an eyebrow at the wine bottle. 

“Might as well enjoy it while we can.” Who knew what the next few days, weeks, possibly months were going to bring. If this was going to be our last night of calm before an unknown storm I wanted to enjoy it.

A spark lit in Dan’s eyes as a smile spread over his face, maybe it was the wine, the sense of adventure, or just the level of fear we had at the great unknown that our futures held. 

But we enjoyed the night.

While we could.

——  
January 11  
——

Waking up I was surprised to see Dan awake already, usually he would stay in bed, snuggling into my warmth, taking his time to get moving.

But today he was awake, sitting on the edge of the desk next to the bed, watching the sun rise out the window. Turning his head as I sat up he looked down giving me a soft smile that made my heart clench.

“Morning beautiful.”  
“Morning hansom.” I said back at him catching his smile, feeling those emotions of contentment radiating off of him. “What’s got you up so early?”  
“Nothin, I dunno, just woke up and felt really good today. Guess I’m excited to go? I dunno, just-“ His shoulders twitched and he pushed off the desk to jump back into bed, less to join me and more to yank the covers off and force me to suffer the cold with him.

He was full of a nervous kind of energy, I could understand that, today we were going to leave, we had 20 days worth of supplies and 100 days worth of walking ahead. 

It was terrifying

We moved a little slow still, almost like we were putting off leaving.  
We were putting off leaving but who would want to leave? Here we at least had shelter, some food, maybe ways to get more food around us.

Out there…

Checking the bags one last time, putting the salt, pepper, and garlic in my pockets earning me an amused look from Dan and a “Shut up I’m Italian” back at him we set off later than I would have normally liked. I wasn’t sure what day it was anymore, I knew that winter solstice was over so the days would be getting longer, but that didn’t mean that we weren’t limited to 6 or 7 hours of sunlight at most. The dangers of a cold night were more than enough, the last thing we needed on top of that was to be stumbling in the dark and break a leg.

“Goodbye bath… Goodbye room…” I sighed heading out the door making Dan giggle even though we both were a little sad to be leaving. This place was starting to feel a bit like a home, a lot of time hadn’t passed but a lot of emotions had, a lot of memories both good and bad were made here even in such a short time.

Getting onto the highway and double checking one last time the direction I wanted to go I could tell why Dan woke up feeling so good.  
The last few days had been a cold snap of grey, combined with that lack of sunlight was the added weight of gloom realizing that we had been abandoned out here to die by the rest of the world.  
But today the sun was shining bright, the weather had to be in the single digits, maybe even on the plus side of things, we were alive and it was like nature was celebrating us embracing that. 

It just felt like a good day.

The walk was easy, being on a cleared road we were moving faster than we had been on the train tracks, not needing to worry about losing our way in a snow drift, not weighed down breaking through each step, just the steady thump of our boots on the pavement, the sandy, scratching white noise of flakes of dry snow skating over the road in the breeze. 

Dan was fortunately an experienced wordsmith, more than willing to share his life story down to the smallest details with hilarious embellishments, kind enough to be aware of me as well, asking questions and drawing out all the same stories.

After this much time and intimacy with one another today however we were silent.

But it was a different kind of quiet.

It was the type where thoughts could be followed without a word. A glance with a small smile, a flick of the eyes, a nod, a tiny gesture, a single breath could speak fathoms.  
We could talk, but we didn’t need to right now.

Time as numbers hadn’t meant anything to either of us since the crash but the sun is still in a good position, past its peak but still a good distance from the mountain tops when you arrive at a bend in the road where tire tracks lead off onto a side road, the snow pushed down from light use.

Dan and I gave each other a look, the rise in his eyebrows asking /Do you think this is the shop owner?/ the furrow of my brow saying /yes/

“Should we?” Dan asked, I could feel the conflict in his voice.  
“I dunno…” His gut was better than mine when it came to feeling things out, but logically this felt like a bad idea.

He looked torn, on one hand what if this was our salvation.  
On the other hand, if it was the shop owners they’d made the choice already to abandon us and we certainly wouldn’t have endeared ourselves to them by smashing up their store.

Mouth in a thin line he shook his head, looking back toward the road with a steady determination. “Nah, lets go.”

It was maybe 30 minutes up the road that we heard the faintest echo of a car engine whispering over the valley. We were on an incline that blocked the road ahead, and there were still too many trees in the way to see that far behind us, hearing the vehicle I instinctively called out “Car” from days past playing hockey in the street and we kept walking but more to the side of the road than the middle. Eventually the sound faded and while the thought was there in the back of my head, the wish that someone would drive by and pick us up, I kept my mind to walking.

The sky was starting to fade when Dan touched my arm, asking if we should find a spot to try and make camp for the night. 

“Yeah lemmi take a look here.” The highway maps were not super detailed and after around 5 hours of walking the scenery had only changed just enough that I could confidently cross off two of the five locations that I vaguely placed us at, which meant the next town was still another 6 hours along the road, maybe more if I was wrong on where we were on the map. We’d only passed one sign indicating that the gas station we’d raided was 25km behind us, but nothing to give us any indication to our position.

“I’m hoping we’re here.” I said once we started walking again folding the map to point to our potential location. “Which means we could hit Mafeking by tomorrow afternoon. But we might still be up here… Anyway lets get to that-“ I pointed to an outcropping of rocks.  
We’d been heading on a light incline, not too hard but enough to keep us warm with effort and get us into areas where the mountain had to be cut away to make room for the road. A good function of these areas were a lot of spots that could easily be dug into, protected from the wind by a wall of rocks and snow, with a small fire and the press of our body heat we’d be able to hopefully keep warm through a night.

In our rush, talking about what we needed to do before the sun went down, combined with the already constant white noise of the wind, neither of us noticed the sound of a car until it was within sight.

“Do you-“ Dan interrupted me looking back seeing a truck flying down the highway toward us. 

We could obviously see them and while the light was dimming it wasn’t nearly dark enough for them to have any trouble seeing us in the middle of the road, and yet they weren’t slowing. We moved to the side of the road, giving them the space to pass although Dan’s arms went into the air waving.  
After all we were clearly far enough away from civilization that anyone with a sense of decency would slow down and hopefully stop.

As opposed to speed up and veer towards us recklessly.

With garbled curses we both stumbled off the road and into the ditch, scrambling up the side to get out of the way of the truck as it careened to where we had just seconds before been standing. 

“Go, go, go!” I chanted shoving Dan in front of me while he swore “what the fuck?” In varying volumes and senses of urgency and anger.

There was a screech of brakes and we kept moving as the truck made a dangerous three point turn trying to line us back up with it’s sights and drive off road to hit us.

Thankfully the ditch and snow slowed them as much as it slowed us, and we had the head start even though they had a car. There was a crunch as the truck hit a human sized boulder that we’d dodged behind, not bothering to look back while we kept running, needing to get into the cover of the trees, deeper where the rocks would shield us and we might find someplace to hide in the dark.

We hit the trees but there wasn’t much for coverage or hiding, a wall of stone behind them that we raced along, after a few more revs of the engine and crunches of metal, hearing the slam of a car door as the driver decided to come after us on foot.

I could make out that it was a man and he was yelling at us, but what he was saying I had no idea, the pounding of my heart in my ears blocked everything out. Dan and I were already tired from a day’s walk, running completely on fear and adrenaline now I could barely keep up with Dan’s longer legs even though he had the harder work of cutting a fresh path in the snow it was still a scramble for me not to get my foot caught in one of his holes and fall flat on my face. 

I yelled when arms grabbed me from the front, Dan had stopped and turned around stopping me from blindly running into him. We could see the man round into the rock corridor we were in. I screamed, Dan pushing me ahead seeing that the man had a shotgun with him and upon catching sight of us, raised it. 

We were able to flee from that first shot, the rocks on both sides making a hallway that once we turned and ran we were completely out of his line of sight, but we were still on an uphill incline, fighting snow, and in an area that was losing the cover of bush and tree.

Even with the approaching darkness there was no way he would lose us in the night, not with our prints in the snow clearly marking the way for him. Still I ran, like an animal on hands and feet clawing my way up the ridge in the snow with Dan on my heels, the light dimming either from lack of oxygen to my brain or from the fading sun I couldn’t even tell. 

Thunder crashed around us and Dan slammed into my back, knocking us both rolling down the hillside, thankfully moving faster, but dangerous because we were not in control of the decent. 

I was dizzy when we finally stopped, groaning as we slammed into a tree and not moving, Dan a dead weight on me my breath gone all I felt was pain, panic, and a need to puke.  
Another crack and an explosion above us wood-chips rained down which got Dan moving first, scrambling off me, dragging me up to my feet moving again, more trees around us to block what I was now registering as gunshots. It was hard pushing forward through the brush, knowing any second the next sound might come with pain and a final darkness.

“There!” Dan called and I followed after his voice and harsher breathing as he hit a deer trail, the path clearer allowing us to move faster, choosing to take it downhill. Maybe a more dangerous choice since it would give the shooter an advantage, but we needed the speed, the ease of movement. I didn’t know how much longer I could go for. 

We hit the road again, but found no relief in it, certainly we could move a little faster there, but so could the man behind us, the clear road giving him even more advantage. Racing as far as we could it was dark enough that spotting us at a distance was going to become increasingly harder, seeing anything for me was hard, I had tunnel vision, all my world focused into a blind need to just run.

Tripping I hit the ground with a sharp cry laying there, too exhausted to run anymore. Dan bent over, collapsing to his knees as well looking back wild as he coughed, choking on his inability to breathe from running.

“We- We gotta.” I wheezed still not able to get up, but crawling to the side of the road now, needing to get up, we still needed to run, we couldn’t see the man behind us anymore but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there, I could hear the rumble of a car not nearly far enough away for comfort, the spinning sound of tires digging their way out of snow. 

Back into the snow we were moving a lot slower, leaning on each other, stumbling into trees, weaving forward not thinking of how the mountain walls were rising up around us, boxing us in, not until we hit the dead end, a large gate in front of us blocking the way.

We froze hearing the echo of an engine back on the road, a slow flash of lights as it moved forward on the road, clearly looking for our tracks in the snow or for us to be on the pavement like targets. 

“Over.” I hissed pulling off my backpack and trying to throw it over the fence, doing nothing but clanging it against the fence and alerting our hunters to our position. 

Dan grabbed my bag, able to jump and toss it higher over the fence, lobbing his own before we both started to clumsily climb cursing as we hit barbed wire at the top, hearing our clothing tear as it caught but thankful that we were in thick layers that protected us from the rusted wires. 

Hitting the ground hard I grabbed a pack, Dan falling onto his side on the ground with a sharp cry hard enough that I was scared he’d broken something when he didn’t move right away.

Lights climbing up the hill that was actually an uncleared road towards us got him moving again, using the lights to spot his own bag as he got up, another bolt of lightning making us both yelp and flee, leaving the bag behind. 

I didn’t know where we were but it would take time for the person in the car to clear that fence and that’s all that mattered, the piles of rocks, the downward decent into a quarry didn’t matter, not until we reached the end of the road we were on which lead into a dark pit. I stopped only to look at Dan, the wild scared look in his eyes was all that I needed to know that he was going if I was.

Running inside we were out of the snow, the darkness even worse with no fading sun, no moon, no stars, we moved forward, one hand in Dan’s the other feeling blindly ahead. 

Stumbling towards what we could only hope was salvation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the whole new story for part 2.


	2. If this doesn’t kill you, I will

——  
January 11  
——

Dan thought he’d experienced the worst pain in his life after the crash, but it was nothing compared to right now.

His whole body was shaking, each breath felt like knives in his chest and gut, he hurt so bad that he could barely move, dragged forward only by her hand in his, agony accented by his head and shoulders constantly bumping against the rock walls in the dark. 

Everything was made worse by the darkness, he was completely blind, a curling panic in his chest that he knew would blossom into full scale catatonic terror if not for the adrenaline rushing in his veins pushing them both forward. 

“No no no!”

Dan bumped into her back as she stopped short, letting go of his hands he could hear a slapping scraping noise. The fear in his throat choked his breath shut until he was able to reach out and grasp her backpack, needing something of her in his hand, in contact with him to keep the dark at bay.

They started moving sideways, she was feeling along the wall, the tunnel they were in must have turned. 

Or hit a dead end already?

She cursed more, pulling away from him, taking off the backpack, grabbing his elbow with a rough “Come on” 

He let out a sharp yelp hitting his head on a low rock, thankfully cushioned by his hair and hat, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t one more ache to add to his impossibly long list already. 

They were moving through a very thin tunnel, needing to slide sideways along their backs to squeeze through. She yanked on him hard as he stopped, his breath coming out in panicked gasps, the tight claustrophobia of the darkness and feeling the rock wall literally pressing on him from two sides getting to be too much.

A series of sharp whines with every breath was his only response, he sounded like a crying puppy, teeth clacking more with fear than the cold.

If the people hunting them caught them here…

His only consolation was that his body might be enough to block her’s from the shots.

Tripping as she gave him a final pull he fell into the next chamber, more open, but by how much he had no idea, enough that he could lay on the floor of it without touching anything around him.

“Get up!” She hissed at him grabbing his arm making him wail with the fresh hell of pain that that brought on. 

“I can’t-” Dan’s voice went up to a throat ripping octive breaking into a near silent scream, he would have given anything to get up, but he was done, his body wouldn’t listen and he couldn’t move, a shaking mess on the cold ground gagging on how much pain he was in, his stomach heaving with how badly he couldn’t breath.

Maybe he blacked out at that point, considering he couldn’t see anything he couldn’t tell, it was all darkness and terror. But he became aware of the silence in the dark, that he couldn’t hear anything except his own heart pounding and his harsh whimpered breathing.

Was he dead?   
He almost hoped so except death was supposed to be the end of pain wasn’t it? And his nerves were still alight in torture.

Did she leave him?

His leg kicked out, unable to get up but jerking on the ground trying to move, calling her name his cries were now a dying wail, horse from their intensity.

Groaning Dan turning his head as an fresh explosion of pain burnt into his eyes.

A hand on his face and a gentle hushing calmed him, he rolled toward the source whimpering as it jostled his right side which he could now identify as the worst point of his hurt.  
“Shhshhsh Lemmi see, lemmi se- oh… oh fuck.”

Blinking in the dim light of her small flashlight, stolen from the gas station, his eyes rolled back now able to see the source of his pain.

Blood was soaked through his glove, into his jacket, and all over his arm, she held up his right hand, needing to see it in the light, the disturbing sight too much for him and forcing him into a complete rejection of what his eyes were telling him. 

The last thoughts he had as the darkness took him were that the raw meat sticking out from his jacket sleeve couldn’t have been his hand.

—

“Fuck fuck ohgodohgod what should I do? I-”

Dan slumped back as soon as he looked up, his head hitting the ground with an audible thump sending me into an even further panic grabbing at his face to check his pulse and breathing which were thankfully still there.

It was pretty understandable, the blood loss alone combined with the exhaustion. 

But this wasn’t the time for him to rest yet, I didn’t know how far along the people behind us were or how much they would continue giving chase. But that didn’t matter, tearing open my pack I pulled out the medical supplies I still had, scattering everything along the cave floor and grabbing up what I needed. 

“What do I do whatdoIdo?” I chanted not knowing anything about how to deal with this scale of injury, I couldn’t even fully SEE the injury, just that were 5 fingers once stood there was now a deformed chunk of hand with 4 remaining. 

I sloshed water over his hand treating it like any other cut. Clean and then wrap it right?   
It didn’t matter that there was a visible pulse of blood that was probably connected to his heartbeat. What else could I do? 

It was so much blood, too much blood, I didn’t know what to do, trying to wrap it to stop the bleeding there was just too much coming from the stump where his pinky used to be, it seemed like it wouldn’t stop.

My brain caught to what was probably a stupid idea, but the only one I had. 

Something I remembered from movies.

The scent of his cooking flesh made me want to throw up.

I had a fancy lighter, on of those ones that was basically a mini-blow torch, and one of the kitchen knives wrapped up in a dish towel in my bag, heating the blade as long as I could, until it went beyond black and glowed I pressed it to his bleeding flesh putting the flame to him as well until the blood stopped coming as thickly.

Cutting the dishtowl into strips, slicing my own thumb in the process, I ignored the pain or the worry of our mingled blood, wrapping his hand, his damaged and deformed ring and middle fingers, all as tight as I could just needing him secure for now. 

Lips to his cool forehead I begged everything in the universe that he be okay, checking his pulse, feeling it there still steady.

Then I took the time to roll away and vomit.

Coughing I froze, hearing a noise and seeing a flicker of light through the crack in the wall that we’d slipped into. Turning off my flashlight I covered Dan’s body with my own, eyes closed tightly shut, forehead against his while I begged the noises to go away.

A deeper breath from Dan was all the warning I got that he was waking up, putting my hand over his mouth I whispered as softly as I could into his ear, asking him to be quiet, not to scream, just be quiet and stay still. 

I held my breath, I could feel Dan blink against my cheek, the soft sound of his gasping breaths through his nose, I knew he wanted to scream or cry in pain but he didn’t.

“There’s no one fucking here!” An echoed yell and crunching boots as the light flashed again. A second muffled voice from outside and a angry “I don’t fucking know!” in response.

We laid there in the dark until the sounds were gone, and still longer even after that, until I was shaking with cold and terror, until Dan’s good hand came up over my wrist to get my hand off of his mouth, until we could both move again, even if it was only for Dan to sit up and cling to me as best he could, his whole body quaking. 

“Can you get up?” I whispered already moving to brace him and help him stand. 

He made noises, but was beyond words, barely able to comply and get to his feet like a shaking newborn calf. Leaning him up against the wall I turned on my flashlight quickly throwing things back into the pack, knowing that I was probably missing some but it didn’t matter, what mattered was that we got out of there.

But, back the way we came? Or forward deeper into the cave? 

I didn’t know, I didn’t know where to go, all I knew was that I was scared to go out the way we came, what if they were waiting for us, what if they were still on the road? What if they swung back again?

Instinct screamed at me to get away, far away from the danger, in whatever direction took me away from it.

With Dan braced against my side we moved, shaking flashlight guiding the way forward deeper into the dark.

—

I wasn’t sure where we were but it was certainly someplace, the cave wasn’t a natural one, support beams and walls that were scraped flat in some places, while other undeveloped corners were half collapsed chipped rock. Whatever it was, was in development to become something eventually.

The space we’d slipped through seemed to be a point where the two sides of the development were connecting, the side we were in now was more developed than the other, the floor evened out to pavement and a large square room, which lead down another hallway that looked more put together with unfinished electrical wiring being set up along the ceiling. A sharp turn in the second hall to the left took us into another room with a table and a few chairs and benches, finished walls that looked like…

Okay I didn’t know what it looked like, it was a place that people could sit in at least but whatever was being build I had no clue based on the simple white walls and nothing else. 

Dan’s weight on me was getting heavier with each step, we’d been walking for a long time, wandering aimlessly down the hallways in the dark, finally reaching this last room when his knees buckled and I was barely able to slow his fall. 

“Baby please I c-can’t I’m so tired.” He begged clinging with his good hand to my leg but unable to hoist himself back up onto his own feet. 

“Okay, it’s okay.” I looked around the room, it wasn’t warm in here but it certainly wasn’t the deadly cold like it was outside, maybe 10 or 15 degrees if I had to guess? I didn’t know what the ventilation was like so there was no way I was lighting a fire but we could probably sleep here with some safety from the elements.

And hopefully safety from the people hunting us as well.

Tugging Dan closer to the wall so he could lean against it I got him some water, helping him drink, pushing one of the trail mixes into his hand too, helping to open it and get a few pieces of chocolate into him before he shook his head refusing anymore.

“C’mon buddy, you need the sugar.” I insisted trying to sound as chipper as I could to push away how scared I was.   
“I know- I can’t, it’s just- my- my- just hurts too much.” He heaved a yawning sigh that made my heart clench in fear with how he stopped breathing for a few terrifying seconds. I had the flashlight but I’d turned it off to save the battery not knowing how long it would last and it was the only one we had now.

I didn’t want to think too deeply on that.

“M’tired.” He mumbled leaning closer to me.

I didn’t know, could he sleep? Was that a good thing? It wasn’t a head injury and it wasn’t cold, loss of blood required rest so?

“Dan, you’re not allowed to die okay?” I felt for his face, turning in the dark to press my lips against his, kissing him hard, harder until he responded, lightly pulling back giving me a peck.  
“I won’t.”  
“I’m holding you to that.”

Pulling out the sleeping bag I had attached to my backpack I helped him lay in it, pulling off my jacket and the blanket I’d been wearing under it and placing those on him as well, rolling up my scarf for him to use as a pillow and snuggling close to his uninjured side. He was out even before he laid down, barely responding while I moved him beyond pained mumbles.

Placing my head on his chest I listened to his heart beat, it took a long time before I could fall asleep.

——  
January 12  
——

I had no idea what time it was when I awoke, a sharp whine from Dan was all it took for me to go from a light doze to sitting straight up, completely awake. I wished I could have forgotten what had happened within my sleeping state, but I was hardly asleep to begin with, the image of his hand, the blood, the stink of iron, and cooked skin crawling over me. The need to wake up again and again, to silence my own breathing to make sure that Dan still was. I didn’t even dare toss and turn or attempt to actually force myself asleep, allowing myself to drift in and out if I could, wanting to monitor Dan’s condition as close as possibly through the night.

“Dan?” I whispered wondering if he was awake, getting no response I gave up on sleeping, it was warm enough under the blankets that I knew he would be fine at least as far as heat was concerned. 

Turning the flashlight back on and giving myself a few minutes to adjust to the bright light I looked around the room better, seeing the door to one side leading off to wherever the entrance was to this place. I felt better knowing that there must be a second entrance and hopefully it was one the men who had been after us didn’t know about, although I was deeply paranoid that maybe they did? What was this place? Who were they?

I assumed they were the drug dealers, it was poor luck that they chose today to go back to the store, probably remembering our begging note to know where to look for us, and then finding our note there detailing our plans to leave in case someone did come to rescue us or in case we did die in the snow, were able to follow after us with far too much ease.  
But it was also maybe good luck that before that point they didn’t care. They’d had multiple opportunities to come and kill us, when they first found the note taped to their door what did they think we were going to do? Quietly and politely die out in the snow? Were they really that pissed off that we’d robbed them, not even of money or drugs but simply food? Easily replaceable items that probably didn’t even come up to $50 even at their ridiculously inflated prices?

I was furious that it had come to this, enraged that they would have left us, even more angry that they would then choose to come after us for such a petty thing. 

And yet here we were.

I hadn’t gotten far down the hall, I could hear the sharp panicked cry of Dan behind me, raising in pitch as I turned and rushed back. He didn’t calm until I was right there with him gathered up in my arms clinging to me begging for me not to leave him.

“I won’t, I promise I won’t, we’re in this together, every fucking step okay?” I shushed him until his shaking stopped and he was quiet once more.  
“Do you think you can get up? Eat a little something?”

He didn’t want to move much, almost like a child with how he clung, his too large body trying to tuck itself into my lap while I was able to feed him a handful of peanuts and dried fruit bits with chocolate. 

“Can you stand up? Here hold the flashlight for me okay? I’m gonna pack up.”

Dan nodded, still not talking, his arm clutched close to his chest as he watched me hurry to roll everything up, panning the beam around to make sure I’d gotten everything this time before he gave me the flashlight back, wanting to take my hand with his instead of holding it.

I waved off the light at first, tying a knot in my scarf and tugging him down to put it over his neck so he could use it as a sling instead of just holding his arm aloft the rest of the day. I had no idea what to do about his hand and I didn’t even want to look at it now, not while we could barely see and weren’t exactly in a safe place.

The exit wasn’t that much further ahead, a door was there which while locked from the outside was thankfully the kind that freely opened from the inside, although I had to give it a few full body shoves to get it open through all the snow on the other side. We stood in the doorway for a long while shielding our eyes waiting for them to adjust to the harsh white light. Carefully looking around, seeing nothing but snow I stepped out, Dan right next to me, his eyes open wide, keeping a sharp eye and ear open for the sound of anything.

We were probably moving twice as slow as we had been the day before, I didn’t want to push Dan too hard, he was still pretty unsteady on his feet, a lot of stopping to make him take a few more mouthfuls of trail mix, making sure he was at least staying hydrated. We’d lost half our supply of water and food, and I hadn’t been able to restock the night before, so of the two small bottles I had in my bag one was long empty even before we reached the strange tunnel. I was pushing Dan to finish the second, instead filling the empty first with snow as we walked and putting it into the front of my jacket to melt. It was uncomfortable and probably not the safest thing but Dan needed the clean water and I would be fine until we could make more.

With the silence and the slow pace my mind was running a million miles faster.

We lost the hatchet, the crowbar, one of the sleeping bags, Dan’s notebook which held a lot of the notes we’d both made on the trip.  
Thankfully I still had the maps, although now that we were off the road I had no idea where we were or where we were going, I was just following along the edge of the mountain wall, not that there was much choice, once the door closed behind us to the tunnel it was a dead end in that direction, we were in a valley between stone walls and our only option was forward.  
We had food for maybe 7 or 8 days with the supplies that I had just been carrying and thankfully I had a small pan with me so once we found someplace to build a fire I’d be able to start boiling water. 

But just the thought of the fire was enough to ratchet up my already frayed nerves. I had a lighter, some matches, but no hatchet meant gathering wood was going to be harder.

I sped up, needing just a few steps of distance between Dan and myself, needing to calm the sudden irrational anger in me at him leaving behind his bag. 

Luckily it was short-lived quickly turning into self loathing.

I couldn’t be mad, it was my fault for not being able to toss my own bag over, if I had the first time we would have been over the fence long before those guys had gotten up the hill, Dan wouldn’t have been shot, we would be-  
we would be…

I’d stopped walking, fists beating against my own head in frustration, pushing back the blanket hood to dig my fingers into my hair pulling at it, needing the physical pain to overpower the emotional turmoil I was feeling. 

I don’t know how long I stood there for, on the brink of losing control, my jaw creaked with the effort of relaxing it once I was able to calm myself again. 

Turning my head I looked at Dan, who was just standing there, watching me with no judgement on his face, just tired patience and understanding.

He still hadn’t said anything, even now he didn’t, instead his eyes barely flicked up, head nodding down the hillside we were on, to an opening in the trees. I could make a roof out over the tops of them, beyond that I could see the open expanse of either the ocean or another lake, maybe even the same lake as before.

It was the only thing we could see so we made our way there, stopping at the tree line to scope it out before making our way closer. 

It wasn’t much, just an old abandoned barn, bush and woods were creeping up on it, the land unused for who knew how long but long enough that growth was taking over the land. Although the building was leaning at a dangerous angle we still went inside, the wind wasn’t too bad today but it was enough that any cover was appreciated and at least once we broke past the barrier of bushes around the place inside was dry and free from snow. 

Dan was like a dog, how he wandered around in a small circle finding the best spot before dropping down onto his butt, taking what rest he could. 

I put the backpack next to him, unrolling the sleeping bag to wrap it around his shoulders, barely getting a reaction when I pressed my lips to his temple opting to get to work instead of rest.

We hadn’t walked all that long or far, but we’d had a late start and a slow go of it and I guessed maybe 2 or 3 hours of sunlight left, it was pointless and dangerous to wander around in the night so this was the best cover we were probably going to get. Sweeping away old hay and leif litter, I dug bare handed against the dirt to make a clear spot for a fire, barely a hole I was fortunately at least able to find enough stones to make a little barrier. Filling it with the dried leaves and grass I set about picking up old rotting planks of wood, twigs, garbage, just anything that I could pull out and put there for the fire that I was waiting until the sun actually went down to light. 

Taking a moment to check Dan’s pulse, as he’d curled up next to the pit I built and had gone to sleep, I sat with him opening up my bag to see what I still had. I’d torn through it in desperation to stem the flow of his blood before I didn’t even know entirely what we had left. 

Originally we each had a max of 20 days worth of food, really a lot less considering I was calculating that at barely 1000 calories per day, so if I was being honest, we each had 10 days in our packs.

Now we had three split thinly between the two of us.

I hadn’t eaten yet today and I was dizzy with hunger, pushing Dan to eat my portion as we walked he hadn’t been able to eat that much so thankfully I’d be able to get a mouthful or two of some trail mix, but I was going to wait until the fire was up, until I could drink some hot water to fill the void in my belly and then top it off with some actual nutrients to sleep on. 

Getting back up from my rest I worked the rest of the daylight hours using the knife I had to cut down all the dried bushes and weeds in the barn, twisting them into bundles to burn, kicking any pieces of wood I found into chunks small enough for the fire, making sure to gather a pile I felt would burn, however small, through the night.

Dan woke up when I touched his neck the second time, jolting away from my cold fingers with a cry of fear, taking a few moments to focus on me. 

“Sorry.” He croaked his voice dry and gravelly from lack of use and not drinking enough water. 

It was my turn to have no words for him, just nodding and going back to work, pushing the last few sips of water into his hands as well as what food I was allotting both of us tonight. 

He sipped the water, easing his own throat while I filled the pan we had with snow and finally started the fire, the room getting dim enough for it. 

“Hows your hand?” I was finally able to speak once the water had gotten to a boil and I was able to sip a few hot mouthfuls of it to unstick my dry throat. 

“Hurts.” He replied dully “Throbbing.” Frowning he finally asked if I had any pain killers. 

We were in too much shock the night before and this morning, he hadn’t asked so I hadn’t offered since I barely had any and a travel pack of regular strength Tylonol wasn’t exactly going to cut his discomfort that much. But I fished two out of my bag hoping it would be enough to at least help him rest more.

Snuggling close maybe he fell asleep again, I wasn’t sure, my eyes were on the fire, watching the water boil to refill our bottles, a slow process that needed to be done. I was so tired, so hungry, scared shitless. 

I didn’t know if we were going to make it.

I didn’t know if I wanted to anymore.


	3. The Dream is Over

——  
January 13  
——

I’m not sure when I fell asleep. One moment I was adding more snow to the pot, the next I was shivering laying on the ground next to Dan but on the outside of the sleeping bag. Getting up I carefully fed one of the straw bundles to the low fire to get it kicking back up again, putting a few fresh planks of wood on top of that. The water was warm, mostly evaporated now but I downed it before getting up to refill it with more snow.

It was then that I saw the car lights. 

“Dan… Dan get up.” I snapped rushing back to him, cruelly ripping the sleeping bag off of him to roll it up as fast as I could and to get it up. While he’d been able to sleep the kind of sleep that only the truly exhausted could get the shock and fear in my voice had him shoot up faster than I expected. 

“Someone’s coming, we have to go.”

The same terror I had swept over his face, grunting he got to his feet as fast as he could, helping me get my backpack together as much as he was able to as we could hear the truck approaching, lights now flickering through the wooden beams of the dilapidated barn. 

“Go-“ I hissed at him pushing Dan ahead of me in the opposite direction that we could see the truck at, turning around I kicked at the fire sending flaming wood and sparks scattering over the kindling I still had stacked up and the dry grasses littering the ground nearby. I didn’t stop to see if it would catch, instead racing behind Dan and running off into the early morning light, making our way into the tree-line and not looking back until Dan tripped and I was forced to stop and go back for him. 

I could see the smoke in the distance, a black beacon in the pink sky. Standing there catching our breath we watched it, alert for anything around us to show that the men were following, grateful that they were not.

I sat next to Dan while he stared off into the distance, watching the sun come up, watching the fire burn, waiting for something to happen.

How dull his eyes looked, barely seeing as they looked unblinking a million miles aware from where he was. His head dipped forward and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep sitting up, it was the visible tightness in his jaw that made me realize that he wasn’t, giving him time to gather himself for this next leg of our journey.

Luckily from this vantage point we could at least see the road, see the truck still parked by the barn, the two men standing outside of it watching the barn burn, it oriented me to some level of where we were, that we were still going along our original path.

I didn’t want to push Dan anymore than I had but I could see the men in the distance circling the barn, they’d spot our tracks in the snow now that the sun was up, it wouldn’t take much to figure out which ones were coming and which ones were going and I didn’t want to be caught. 

“C’mon. C’mon buddy lets go okay?” My voice was soft and gentle, like I spoke to my students, something that felt so long ago and so far away from here.

He didn’t look like he wanted to go but ever obedient he let me guide him to his feet, leaning against my side to move forward until he was steady enough to go it alone.

We walked.

We walked and walked, keeping away from the road but trying to keep an eye on where it was now and again, we slid down hills and climbed breathless along ridges, one foot in front of the other until the edge of the woods and mountain fell away to open flat land. Large, perfectly round mounds were scattered around, and we just kept walking. 

The field gave way to an orchard, and I barely mentally registered that we were walking towards a large old farmhouse that was there. We’d plodded along without stopping the entire day, I was beyond starving since we hadn’t stopped so we hadn’t eaten. Only slowed enough to grab ice cold mouthfuls of water from the bottles I’d been able to fill the night before. 

We stopped at the front steps, standing there in the dimming light, too tired to even walk up them.

The place looked old, still together but there was more exposed wood than there was paint on the outside of the two story building. Nothing looked like it was leaning or sagging but it sure appeared to be maybe one or two more winters away until that did happen.   
All the windows were at least still intact but it absolutely looked haunted, and I could only hope abandoned considering the condition of the place.

Unfortunately the front door was locked.

Dan slid down the wall next to the door, shaking his head, a stubborn refusal to move now that he was down. 

I stood there wanting to join him, we could cuddle up, close our eyes and it would be over, maybe we would become the spirits inhabiting this old house, it looked like it would be a nice place to haunt. 

I dropped the backpack next to him, the temptation pulling at me like a sweet siren song.

Stumbling away, needing to make sure that we couldn’t get in I rounded the side of the house to spot a enclosed porch, while some of the panes of glass were broken it was dry inside and protected from the worst of the wind, tugging at the door it was locked but it was a flimsy screen door, a lift and a full body tug and it opened against its will. 

Inside it was notably warmer than outside, the glass and being an enclosure reflecting the light and holding it in, but I knew that would fade fast as the sun was going down, the broken panes would quickly lose heat. But there was a door leading inside as well, unfortunately more solid than the screen door and just as locked as the front.

Leaving I could see across the way that there was another barn in the distance, probably in worse shape than the house and still open to the elements but at least someplace we could build a fire and not die of smoke, I could snap off the low hanging branches of all the fruit trees that were around.

Turning the corner to the back of the house there was nothing but a wall and in the distance nothing but snow and more trees, the final wall heading back to Dan however had a strange slanted point in the middle of it.

I used my foot to rub the snow off it revealing a metal storm door, it was rusted to all hell and lazily locked with a chain wrapped around the handle but no actual lock on the chain. While the chain was frozen solid a few good kicks and I was able to work it off.

Swinging open the door it lead down into the dark that the dim purple evening light couldn’t reach. 

Calling out to Dan I didn’t bother to wait for him, pulling the flashlight out from my pocket and slowly making my way down the steps. There wasn’t much down here, cement floor, a metal workbench, a chair next to it. My flashlight passed over some tools, rusted but still hanging to the wall near the bench, I ignored them for now, looking to the second set of stairs that lead up into the house, the door at the top of the stairs fortunately unlocked. 

But really, who locked the door to their own basement?

I came out in the kitchen, a door to my right that I opened which lead into the glass enclosed porch. Orienting myself I went around the stairs and to the front door to get Dan.

He was still sitting up, legs drawn up making himself as small as possible to get as warm as he could. Eyes closed he’d somewhat fallen asleep, even though the thought of that worried me, I was far too exhausted to react too deeply about it, instead shaking his shoulder more roughly than I’d intended to wake him up and help him inside.

From the front door even in the dim light I could see the fireplace, eyes scouring the dim living room there was a book on the coffee table. Both book and table were caked in dust, no one had been here in a long time even though the previous tenants clearly left without taking any of their stuff with them.

I took no time to wonder about that fact, snatching up the book and ripping at the pages to make kindling, setting that alight in the large stone fireplace feeding the quick burning paper flames, eventually giving it the entire book to eat.   
It wouldn’t last long, but thankfully there was an old wooden crate with a few pieces of dusty old wood next to the fireplace, the crate itself I would probably burn too once I had the energy to kick it down small enough to jam in. 

Dan sunk down to the floor next to me as I messed with the fire, pulling off the glove on his good hand with his teeth to reach out as close to the flames as he could get warming his hands. 

This wasn’t going to be enough wood, and I didn’t have the energy to break down the furniture, but it was too late for me.

I was so tired my eyesight was blurring at the edges, crawling away from the fire so I didn’t fall in I flopped to the ground, my head pillowed by Dan’s boney calf, sleep overtaking me.

-

Dan stared at the fire, not registering much around him except there was heat and he wanted it. There were many things he wanted, all dim and far away, pushed down because he knew somewhere that he couldn’t have those things. He wanted food, he wanted water, he wanted the pain to stop, but for now he wanted to be warm and slowly that wish was getting granted. 

He wriggled, trying to get even closer to the hot dancing lights but something was pinning down his leg, he squirmed against it, not wanting to lose the heat, feeling like if he looked away from it maybe it would disappear but he couldn’t get closer.

Looking down he saw her against his leg, eyes shut, so still he couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. It took him a few moments for his mind to move out of the foggy numb place he had put it in to keep his body moving today, for real thoughts to bubble back up to the surface. 

/I… need to…/

Gently touching her cheek he couldn’t tell which was colder, his fingers creeped over her face until his palm was covering her mouth and nose.

Pressing down he held his own breath, watching her intently.

It took a light squirm an muffled noise from her before he pulled back his hand like she’d burnt him, suddenly realizing that he had been cutting off her ability to breath.

And that it had been intentional.

Kicking away from her, she didn’t even wake up as her head thumped against the wooden floor, too tired to fight anything in this moment, which made him darkly realize it would be so easy right now to help her sleep forever.

Because then he could too.

He needed to get up, he needed fresh air, his lungs were too small in his chest, his pounding heart taking up the rest of the space beating at his hollow body.

Outside he sucked in the cold night air in loud wheezing gasps looking up at the black sky.

“IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?” He screamed then. “IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT FROM ME?”

The cruel god that had done this to them clearly didn’t want them dead, no whatever spiteful being that could control the powers of the universe had countless opportunity to kill them, it clearly wanted them to suffer, to break, to give up.

“FUCK YOU!”

Walking out into the snow he stooped down grabbing handfuls of snow and throwing them to the sky, trying to grab at the rocks under the snow and toss those too, all while yelling every profanity that he knew in a fit of incoherent rage that would put Arin to shame.

Trying to grab a stick with his bad hand jolted him back to reality, putting him on the ground in a ball of pain that sapped everything from him.

“God please, please, God why? Why? I’ve tried, I’ve tried to be good please I’m trying.” Sobbing uselessly into the snow Dan moved from cursing God to begging him, both in equal parts getting the same answer, both things he’d done before to the same general effect.

They’d worked so hard to get here, he’d tried so hard. He was a good person, he loved people and was kind, he used to try and be religious, to believe in those higher powers, he wanted the world to be a good place and did what he could to make that happen. They had a plan to get out of this frozen land, they had been so close to saving themselves, their plan was good but this had to happen and now they would never make it.

Begging for a sign, for salvation, for anything Dan laid in the snow trying to find the will to live in himself, the chilling thoughts that he would never see his friends and family again freezing him faster than the quickly dropping night temperature.

If anyone was listening.

They didn’t care.


	4. Sleep in the Heat

——  
January 14  
——

I woke up very disoriented.

I was hot, and sweating, which was a sensation I hadn’t felt in what seemed like forever but dimly I knew had only been a few days ago. But being woken up by the heat, hearing the crackle of the fireplace, my mind was transported back to the cabin near the gas station. Sitting up and looking around I was deeply lost on where we really were, I was here, Dan was here, the fire was here, but everything else was missing and wrong.

It took a while for my sleep addled brain to remember why we were here and where exactly here was.

I was still confused even after all that. I could see that the fire was still going, a pile of twigs next to it, the sleeping bag was over top of me, Dan tucked under it too, pillows from the sofa had been beaten to get the worst of the dust off them and placed under my head and his.

A part of me thought that somehow the house was haunted by a useful ghost who didn’t want us to leave.

But more logically I knew Dan must have done it all while I’d uselessly slept. 

I felt guilty for it, he was injured and I’d been pushing him so hard and yet here he was, still trying to take care of me, still working so hard while I was ready to give up on everything. Leaning over him I pressed my lips to his cheek, pulling back quickly feeling the heat radiating off of him.

He was on fire

“Dan?” I shook him, trying to get him to wake up, once more I felt bad for doing so, especially since he’d probably been up half the night scrounging in the dark for those branches to keep the fire going. He groaned turning to me, blinking owlishly, how had I not noticed how deeply sunk in they looked? The purple tinge under them? He was so deathly pale, a shimmer of sweat on his face.

“Dan lets…” Looking around I spotted the sofa, a dirty and stained looking old thing but better than nothing at the moment. “Lets get you up off the floor okay?” I couldn’t tell if his groaning protests were from sleeping on the hard wood all night and being forced to move, or more worrisome, connected to how he looked and how warm he was.

I was begging whatever deity that would listen that it was just a little dehydration from being too close to the fire all night.

Getting him tucked in on the sofa, giving him both of the pillows from off the floor I helped him drink the last of the water from my bag. He’d gathered wood, which was important, but hadn’t refilled any of the water to melt, at least it gave me something useful to do today. But feeling his face with my bare hands I was worried, he was still too warm.

“How do you feel?”  
“Cold.” He mumbled, his voice a low rasp.

I mentally cursed, he obviously was running a fever which possibly meant his hand was the source of it.

We didn’t really have any bandages left, I’d used everything to just stop the bleeding enough to get him here, I was scared to remove them, what if he bled more? What if I couldn’t stop it this time?  
But…  
What if it was infected? What if he got blood poisoning? What if this was septic? Sepsis? Strep? I didn’t even know the word for what could be wrong with him but I knew it was bad.

“Okay, you just- just rest okay? I’m going to be right back, get you some water and make us a nice hot soup.”

We didn’t have soup, but I supposed a peanut and roasted raisin mashed into hot water could be called a soup in a way.

I grabbed the pan from my pack, pulling out all our supplies while I was at it lining it up on the table. 

Five bags of trail mix with a few chocolate bars as filler, after not eating at all yesterday it would still be meagre rations but I didn’t want to cut Dan’s any thinner than I had to. I knew what I was about to do to him and he’d need the strength. 

I had the tampons I’d stolen still, maybe I could use them as sort of an absorbent gauze because at least they would be sterile. Some salt, I knew it hurt when you put it on wounds but did it clean it? You gargled with salt when sick right? I was pretty sure it was a disinfectant. Garlic and Pepper which considering we had no food felt pretty useless to be carrying, and about 18 Tylonol left. I checked the package knowing I should probably give Dan at least 6 today to help with the fever, and the pain I was about to cause him. 

Beyond the sleeping bag and the kitchen knife, we didn’t have anything else.

I set to work, filling the pan I had with snow and setting it next to the fire to begin melting, then went deeper into the house. 

The place was filthy, and creepy. The wallpaper was peeling in the few places it could still valiantly hold on where else-wise it was in rotted piles on the floor, water damage moulding where it once stood. Whomever had lived here left, and left suddenly, they never packed, there were still dishes in the sink, a full kitchen untouched in the however many years since another human had stepped inside here. If I wasn’t so tired and hungry I probably would have been scared shitless of the place but for now I did’t have time. There was a pot and pan just sitting on top of an old style wood burning oven, it was an interesting relic that in any other situation I could have been very fascinated with, a centre burner for wood, the top large and flat for cooking up to 4 pots, a smaller side stove for a single baking tray to slide into. Next to it was a counter space but under that was a large wood pile, old and maybe a little rotted on the bottom but the top chunks of wood looked perfect to burn. I hadn’t noticed a wood pile outside but I had been a little single minded in what I’d been looking for at the time, entry into the building, there were probably a lot of things I’d missed in my first skim over the place just trying to get in.

The pot and pan were what I was after, scummy on the inside but at least they had been clean before they’d been left, dead bugs and spider webs were all that were in there and a quick step outside and a scrub with snow and my gloves left them in a state of ‘more than clean enough’ for boiling water.

I searched more in the kitchen, the drawers filled with various junk and in one, an unfortunate dead mouse, but I was able to locate a drawer filled to the brim with tea towels, glad that whomever lived here last was a collector of seasonal printed sets for their kitchen. While musty from lack of use over the years they had been protected in the drawer from the worst damage, a few pieces chewed on and a moth hole or two didn’t matter, I beat out the worst dust slapping them against my leg and took them back to the living room to throw them into a pot of water, giving them the best scrub I could in some salt water before dumping the pot out, ripping them into strips, and setting the rags to boil in the pan hopefully to cook out any bacteria and make them useful.

Waiting for them to boil I put a few chocolates from the trail mix in my mouth, sucking on them to make them last while I went back to the kitchen. 

I was a bit of a cleaner, especially when stressed out I needed everything to be in its place, like if I could somehow control and organize my immediate environment I could magically control the chaos surrounding whatever else was bothering me. Sometimes it worked…  
I doubt it would do much now.  
But that didn’t make the compulsion to wipe off the table and start dumping out each of the drawers and cupboards any less. 

I found a bucket under the sink, some of the trash still in it, beyond the stage of even smelling bad anymore it was plastic, or just dirt by now. I pulled out all the dishes in the sink, a few mugs, bowls, Tupperware, and utensils rusted beyond repair and dumped them into the bucket. Systematically clearing things either into the trash or laying out anything ‘Still good’ on the table. Junk drawers filled with dead pens, half used pencils, scraps of faded paper went into the bin, the drawer with the mouse was binned, most of the rusted utensils were tossed.

I stopped then and went back to the living room, checking Dan’s pulse and forehead accidentally waking him up again. 

“-sty” He croaked at me his voice a rasp as he fought to keep his eyes open and focus on my face.   
“Thirsty?” I confirmed getting a small nod. “Can you sit up?”

I pulled one of the boiling pots off the fire and put it on the floor next to him before helping him sit up, he made light pained noises as he did. Not only was he feverish with all the aches and pains that brought on, but if he’d been out breaking sticks by the moonlight he probably worked himself up a deep muscle ache just doing that.

Carefully I poured some of the hot water into one of the water bottles we had, the plastic made distressed noises at it but I hadn’t found any mugs yet so it would have to do. 

Sitting next to Dan he held the bottle but I didn’t quite let go of it, holding him back from chugging the scalding hot liquid “Careful it’s hot.” only permitting him small sips. 

“Can you eat something?”  
He actually had to think about it, giving a small nod and accepting a few chocolates to suck on, melting them faster with the hot water mixing in his mouth. 

“Do you think you can swallow these?” I grabbed the two painkillers I’d left on the table of the pile of 6 I could allot him today. “I want to check your hand” so you’re going to need them, was the unsaid part but he understood what was about to happen. 

He took them, sipping at the too hot water and probably burning his mouth but he at least had a few more minutes of reprieve since I needed to let the water in the new bandages to cool and possibly dry before I could fully change them.

But for now I wanted to look at his hand at least, let it air out.

Dan tipped his head back, throwing his good arm over his eyes while he tried to relax, presenting his bad arm to me. I could somewhat smell it the moment that I took off the glove, a sticky sweet cloying scent of blood and rot. Even that much had him jerking, trying to pull his hand away but keeping it steady. 

“Just a sec…” I rolled up my own glove from my pocket and tapped his good hand with it. “Put this in your mouth.” 

He looked horrified but with a deep breath obeyed. 

Last thing we needed was him cracking a tooth or biting off his own tongue in pain. 

It was hard to get the older bandages off, they’d solidly crusted on so soaked in blood and as I peeled the layers back I could also smell the pus. 

Dan’s crying was just increasing in volume and intensity as each layer came off, his head rubbing against my back as I had to move our positions to pin his arm against my body to keep it steady. I hoped he wouldn’t try to look because I’m sure it would feel worse if he knew what it looked like. The skin along his entire hand was discoloured, deep blacks fading into yellows, black blood along the worst of the scab with weeping thick yellowy white discharge around the puffy edges. Now in the light I could see even jagged pieces of what could only be his bone. 

“Danny? I know it hurts buddy I know, but can you try your hardest to make a fist or wiggle your fingers?”  
He shook his head rubbing it between my shoulders, not wanting to, a long whine coming out of his muffled mouth, but his index and thumb twitched.

“Good! Good that’s awesome! Can you feel this?” I repeated this question four times, gently dragging my fingers along his, I got three nods so even though his middle finger wasn’t moving, at least he could still feel it. His ring finger was a mess, burnt and flayed from the bullet ricochet it was more scab than skin, and he had no sensation of me touching it. 

Warning him to brace himself I had to hold him tight, getting about equal amounts of hot water on me as on him while I washed the wound, trying not to peel of any of the scab but still put enough pressure on it to squeeze out the pus. Considering I was using salt water I knew the pain was the worst I could possibly cause him right now, but I needed his hand clean.

He’d screamed himself hoarse by the time I was finished, no longer struggling, just twitching and rocking, his good arm around my waist nearly squeezing the life out of me while I worked but I got it done.

Patting his hand dry as best as I could and wrapping it loosely in a moist towel I took the pot of dirty water and rags outside to dump it out, scrub it with snow, and bring in a fresh pot of water, needing to wash the rags because as gross as everything was, I was afraid we might have to reuse some of them. I checked the strips I’d left hanging by the fireplace, already clean and waiting for them to dry so I could use them for the final wrapping then…

Then… 

——  
January 15 - 20  
——

Everyday was somewhat the same, wash the old bandages in near scalding water, wash Dan’s hand, change it for new. 

I took the first day and then the next to go through the entire kitchen top to bottom, setting things we didn’t need outside as trash simply to ease my state of mind by having a cleaner environment. It helped, being able to scrape up all the wallpaper and garbage on the floors, clean up the living room and organize everything to my liking so I could see it all, lessen my anxiety by having everything visible and in reach.

I couldn’t leave the house the second day, Dan had been in rough shape after I’d cleaned his wound the day before. Spending the rest of that day melting water, cleaning bits of the kitchen and living room, and comforting him. Making sure he was drinking and eating what he could of both our rations. The second day he’d been worse, so I wanted to make sure I stayed just a few steps from his side, too worried to go any further than the kitchen in case he needed something, more ice on his hand or forehead, someone to talk or sing to him to help him from being focused on the pain too deeply.

I was keeping an eye on what we had, things were still portioned out in my head for the both of us and I’d seen food in the kitchen by that point but I couldn’t imagine any of it was useable at first, so if Dan could eat it I was pressuring him to try and eat because I knew his body needed the nutrition to fight back the infection and heal. 

Maybe I needed the food too, but if he died then I knew I wouldn’t.

With a family of five the pantry in the kitchen was fully stocked; cereal, soup, pasta, mac and cheese, pudding mixes, fruit snacks, baby food. Everything a farming family needed to last their own winter in case they got snowed in.

A lot of it was completely inedible, bags of chips, cereals, cookies, anything that was already opened had succumb to rot or rodents, almost anything in a cardboard box had been chewed into, and every single bit of it that was left untouched was at least five years past it’s expiry date. The pasta sitting in plastic containers, the spices, the candy, or the peanut butter I wouldn’t normally trust knowing it was well over five years old, but at this point I didn’t care, as long as it held some kind of nutritional value and we didn’t vomit it back up, it was good enough. There was even a storage of vitamins in a corner medicine cabinet, I was glad to find those, even though they were stale children’s chewables, and some pre-natal vitamins at least we had a storage of herbal teas and some sticky cough drops. Not exactly antibiotics for someone who had their finger freshly amputated but at least there was a few large bottles of various pain over the counter pain medication for a mother’s headaches or a farmer’s daily aches and pains from work.

The basement came the next, cleaning off tools so we once more had a crowbar, a full sized axe, other implements that I could possibly make use of.   
I’d even found a large bag of birdseed that had been completely unopened, I had no idea what the calories would be for chicken feed, but I hauled it upstairs because it was better than nothing. Maybe I could catch a few winter chick-a-dee’s with it, maybe we could eat it.

While the house had a second floor I’d avoided it until the fifth day, choosing to take the fourth day which was thankfully sunny, and Dan had been feeling a little better so I felt safe leaving him, to go outside and restock our wood. I didn’t want to waste too much time wandering the yard, so I did a quick cycle of the house finding a little wood out the back door by the kitchen actually on the inside of the sunny enclosed porch that I’d just not been paying enough attention to notice the first time we’d come in. With that in mind as a good place for storage I went straight to the small lean-to/barn where there was indeed a full winter stack of wood, large uncut hunks of it, with a chopping block right there as well waiting to be used. 

It was a blessing, even if it took me the rest of the day just to chop up enough wood to last maybe the next two. I was slow going, not strong enough to split a log with any sense of ease, breathless after each split which each log needed to be at least quartered.

If I was forced to guess, including rests, it probably took me an hour per large piece I was able to hack down and carry back.

The fifth day I knew I wasn’t going outside, my hands, arms, and shoulders were on fire and I could barely move. Even Dan, for as sullen and quiet as he was in his pain, noticed how slow I was at getting up. He was still unwell but I could tell he was getting better instead of worse. His eyes were still sunken in and he was skeletal with how his cheekbones stuck out but his colour was less ashen, the constant gloss of fever sweat had died down.

Maybe by then he was bored of laying around all day, or maybe it was a sign of him feeling better, but he got up on wobbling legs and brought me a bottle of water and even offered up one of his precious painkillers while I struggled to get up off my sleeping place on the floor.

“I’m fine I just gotta…” I put my hands above me in some sort of child’s pose on the floor groaning with the effort. “Stretch it out.”

Dan rubbed my back while I stayed like that trying to loosen up.

“You should sleep on the sofa.” He finally said when I was able to get onto my knees.   
“No, I’m fine, you need the rest.”  
“So do you.”

He had a point but-  
“I can’t yet, we have some food but the wood is still low, I need to check around the area, see if there’s a lake or a river to try fishing at I just-“ I trailed off feeling that pressing anxiety of having too many things to do and being only one to do them and not having enough time to do it all.

Dan could sense my distress, his good arm wrapping around my shoulders to bring me close so he could press his lips to my temple, squeezing me tight, whispering to me to breathe and that he loved me and that it would be okay.

It didn’t matter if he believed it or not, just him saying it did help. 

It wasn’t sexual in any way but we hadn’t really touched basically since we’d left the cabin to start on our trek. Any time I came into even casual contact with Dan it seemed to be only to cause him pain or discomfort, forcing him to run, to move, to pin him down so I could clean his wounds. It was comforting to be able to sit there leaning against him, hearing his steady heartbeat under my ear. 

I’d been avoiding the upstairs until now partially because I was worried that the stairs might collapse under me and the last thing we needed was for me to break a leg. But also because I didn’t want to find out why this place had been abandoned. The basement and kitchen we were somewhat forced to be in, but I was somewhat avoiding any deeper exploration than that. 

However Dan was right, I couldn’t stand sleeping on the floor much longer and the sofa wasn’t the type that pulled out into a bed and was barely big enough for him to be in comfortably. We both probably needed to consider moving upstairs. Dan stayed downstairs, the effort to just get up and comfort me was enough to leave him a little dizzy and exhausted, so setting him up with a hot mug of weak tea he watched while I carefully tested each step making my way upstairs. 

I immediately felt a change in the air upstairs, just an instant sense of unease a different smell, a coolness to the air…  
Maybe it was all in my head, caused by the unnerving sight of wooden blocks stacked up on the top of the stairs, greeted by an empty crib in the open space. The first door was open, a children’s room, with a bunk bed and desk, toys on the floor.   
The mattresses were completely ruined, not that I would want to sleep in them anyway, something about sleeping in a child’s bed felt inherently wrong.

The room right next to it was the large master bathroom, the weird creeping feeling in the whole upstairs made me solidly decide that there was no way in hell I was ever getting naked up here to take a bath, I’d rather my skin fall off.   
Under the sink with the regular cleaning products was a large glass jar filled with epsom salt, a perfect find since I was quickly running out of the table salt I’d brought with me and the kitchen here was also low on it. Makeup, and kids bath toys were obviously passed over but I opened up one of the big towels to fill it with the other towels, salt, shampoo, and some bandaids and a little first aid kit filled with gauze into it wrapping up all the useful things from the bathroom and carefully hauling them downstairs, stepping around the toys not wanting to disturb them.

Back up I looked briefly into the crib, that mattress also rotted out, I ripped my eyes away from it fast, not wanting to think as to why it was like that.

My answer however was in the master bedroom. The door had been shut but as soon as I opened it I was hit with a smoke. The fireplace and kitchen fireplace pipes both ran through the master bedroom and one, or possibly both, was leaking into it.

A single night with the fireplace downstairs running to keep the family warm.  
Door open to keep an ear open for the kids and baby…  
A deadly combination in the middle of the night where the family probably didn’t wake up.

I closed the door immediately backing up not wanting to think about why everything was rotted on all the beds I had seen. 

Bodies would have been long ago removed, but who would want to live in a house filled with such tragedy in the middle of nowhere?

I backed right into the room that was behind me, a guest bedroom with a desk and a bed free of rot if not very dusty on the top covers. 

Staring at it I debated what I wanted to do, obviously I would rather gouge out my own eyes than sleep up here, really I absolutely wanted to leave running outside and never coming back here again, but Dan wouldn’t be able to make the trip and I had no idea what else was around us that would offer this level of protection…

Pulling off the top comforter I peeled off the sheet and second blanket, tossing them over the railing of the stairs along with the pillows.  
I disturbed the toys then, pushing them out of the way to shove the mattress thumping down the stairs in a cloud of dust.

I did go back up to put the toys back before abandoning the second floor for good.

I slept that night exhausted, moving around furniture, beating out the old mattress and blankets of dust, washing the sheets. But falling asleep that night next to Dan I slept better than I had in a long while.

While upstairs there was the main bathroom fortunately there was a toilet downstairs under the stairs. We hadn’t been using it just yet, not wanting to fill it up and then realize too late it didn’t flush, which it didn’t. Finding so much comfort in something as simple as a mattress I took the next day to do some tinkering in the basement to see if I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the water. 

I wasn’t exactly the greatest handyman in the world, but there were books downstairs, old dusty papers detailing what kind of system the house was on, how to get the well water pumping back into the house. Thankfully it didn’t require electricity, it was all a pump based vacuum system, although the filter and cleaning system for the water did need electricity. So I was able to get the water in the house somewhat running. It was not water that I would drink or even bathe in, rusted brown and even after flushing the pipes a few times the water reeked of sulphur. It was fine for use in the toilet and I was thankful that I didn’t have to piss in a pot or go outside any longer, and now that Dan was a little more mobile, able to shuffle from sofa to the toilet, he was probably glad that I didn’t have to deal with his waste either.

Dan tried to help where he could, feeling better the next day but he was still weak, in pain, shaking when he stood for too long. I set him up with food and fire but needed to head back out as once today’s logs were burned through, we’d be out. So I was stuck for the entire next day chopping and hauling wood.

Dan had lost his notebook in his backpack, all our notes and most of our maps were in there, the entire plan gone with his finger.  
While I was out he’d taken the time to slowly explore, there was a small office downstairs that had some half-used notebooks in it, picking the freshest looking one and tearing out the used pages he’d shuffled back to his spot on the sofa and started writing down our stock. 

He looked a little grim when I’d come back inside.

“Starting tomorrow we’ve got about five days worth of food between the two of us, maybe 10 if we really stretch it and eat the birdseed” He said once I’d taken off my jacket and settled down on the mattress. “Also I’m out of painkillers.”

I’d not really been restricting him too heavily on those. I’d found some in the kitchen and essentially left them out for him to help himself to. Part because I knew he needed them, part because there was so much I needed to get done in a day I couldn’t exactly stop him from taking what he wished. “I found their stash of alcohol in the office which will help but…”

He trailed off, because it was still a limited supply on top of a limited supply of food.

“I can go out, try to find a willow tree.” I knew that willow was where the original aspirin came from, that it had pain relief properties. maybe anti-inflamation too. “I saw some apples still on the trees outside, I can walk the yard, try to uh, see what I can get.”

Dan nodded, tipping his head to the table. “I also found some books in there, herbal remedies so like maybe we can find some stuff outside?”

It was something, and we’d found a book at the old cabin back on the mysterious lack on how to snare rabbits. While we’d toyed with the idea we hadn’t tried to make one but I had seen a few large hares hopping around while I’d been chopping wood so there was a chance I could get one or two.

I didn’t want to think of if it would be enough or not, but Dan was.

“I think- I think you should go.”  
“Huh?” I had no idea what he meant.  
“You should take all the food and keep going I’m-“ He took a shaking breath, refusing to look at me. “I’m just a dead weight right now, and I’m not- I think you should keep going.”

I got up and sat beside him, tilting my head to try and catch his eye.

“Dan…” When he didn’t look at me I reeled back and slugged him in the arm as hard as I could.

His mouth dropped open and he looked at me completely shocked silent before letting loose a long angry “AAAAOOOOWWWWUH!!” shrinking back from me. “What the FUCK?!”

“You fucking know why.”

He clenched his jaw and pouted ever so slightly but he knew I was right. This conversation was an old one and I wasn’t about to lose it even if I had to play a little dirty.

We would figure this out, or we would die together. 

And I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.


	5. Old Wounds

————  
January 21  
————

I walked the yard the next day.

It was a pretty big place, a family running their own apple orchard, I could make out a large overgrown section of snow covered plants that was probably once upon a time a garden, the barn now empty, maybe for storage or some equipment that had been taken away, or sold, or stolen.

Or maybe they never had the time to buy it before death took them?

The trees hadn’t been picked so there were thankfully still branches with stubbornly frozen apples on them, I’d brought my backpack with me, strapped to my chest so I could reach up while walking and pick any low hanging fruit there, fill it with any twigs I kicked up from under the snow. 

I walked the edges of the orchard, where the property line trees met the forest, finding wild rose bushes that I picked the hips off of, Birch tree’s I pulled the bark from with my knife and filled my bag with what branches I could reach and find on the ground. 

The book on herbalism Dan had found I’d scoured over that night and in the morning when I had more light. Mostly looking for things I could already identify like a birch tree which apparently had anti-inflammatory properties helping with sore muscles.

Unfortunately because it was winter Birch was the only thing I’d been able to find in the book that would be useable now. Thankfully while I hadn’t been able to locate a willow tree there were birch trees around in plenty. 

It took a while, weaving through the forest, always keeping the house in sight, walking along the highway ready to duck into the snow again in case a car passed by. I knew cars had to be passing by, the road was too clear for it to just be the people who had shot Dan living all the way out here, they couldn’t all be like that? 

I was scared and uncertain, should we try to block up the road again? Leave a signal we were here? What if the drug dealers found us first? What if the only people left out there were bad like that?

I didn’t know and it made me too scared to try anything. 

I felt depressed, but also somewhat accomplished. I’d filled the bag with twigs and bark and apples, especially the apples. I knew they were probably mostly rotted but mashed up and boiled and they’d make a nice sweet treat. Better than anything else we’d been eating lately, and hopefully filling. 

When I came inside Dan was up, surrounded by pots, pans, all the bowls and containers filled with steaming water that he could get. The kitchen chairs were boxing him in, his clothing all hanging off of the edges of it dripping dry.

He’d jumped ducking down behind the chairs a bit when I’d come stomping in, as though I haven’t seen him naked before.

“What are you up to?” I asked feeling a little smile tug at my lips, I was tired but it was warm, and even though he looked like flesh coloured pipe cleaners, he looked better than he had since we’d arrived. 

He coughed, his first attempt at speech failing, we didn’t talk much these days, or maybe he was just embarrassed at me catching him jacking off. 

“I was feeling kinda gross, wanted to clean up.” 

I could sense mostly the truth from that statement, but gave a knowing hum of not believing him.

Stripping off my jacket, letting the warmth of the room make up for the loss of layers I couldn’t help myself from getting close to Dan and putting my ice cold hands right against his neck to make him scream and slap at me, I felt a little guilty about it, seeing him go a little limp, how he winced in pain from struggling against me.

“Sorry.” I apologized quickly but he grinned in a way that wasn’t entirely fake and waved me off.   
“It’s okay… But you can make it up to me.”  
“Oh? By helping you wash your stank off?”  
He rolled his eyes, not giggling like he might have a few weeks ago, but I could tell he was amused. “Well if that’s what you kids are calling a handy these days sure.”

I raised a fist in jesting threat making him hold up his hands. “Hey, hey, hey little miss abusive look at my arm haven’t you done enough damage to me?” 

He was right, I’d slugged him hard enough that he had a dark bruise from the impact. “Holy shit I did that?”  
“Yuh. You’ve got a mean right hook girl.”

I touched his arm gently dropping all jest and jokes.   
“Fuck I’m sorry Danny.”   
He could tell I was being serious. I didn’t want to hurt him, maybe I’d wanted to shake him out of whatever place he’d been going to but I never really wanted to hurt him.  
“It’s okay, hey-“ He took my chin to make me look at him, pecking at my lips. “It’s really okay.”

I could tell then that he was in such a good mood because he was drunk. 

“Are you hurting?”  
“I uh, hit a bottle a little bit today but just to take the edge off, I’m- It’s- It’s okay.” 

Pulling back to look at his face I could see the tightness there, that beyond the long blinks his eyes were still tight, that most of his smile was a grimace. 

“Are these all clean?” I asked after giving his forehead a kiss, gesturing to the pots of water around him.   
“Yeah.”

Swiping a hot pot of water and getting up I went to my bag, pulling out the things I’d found and putting them on the nearby table. I filled the pot with the birch bark, swirling it around with my fingers in the stinging hot water before returning the pot to the fireside to boil some more. 

“Let me help you wash.” I offered kneeling again and taking a wet cloth.   
“You’ll get all wet.” Dan mumbled his good hand tickling over my stomach to tug at my shirt.   
“Oh no~ Can’t have that can we?”

I really did love that about him. 

I knew what I looked like, what we both looked like, at least he was thin beforehand, his skin was tight against his body, each bone and muscle perfectly defined under it. I hadn’t been nearly as thin, so while I was bones as he was now, mine came with a lot more sag, flat hanging breasts, deep scarring stretch marks, and yet…

And yet he looked at me with such hunger, like I was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wouldn’t let me shy away, didn’t want me to cover anything, every part he wanted to touch, to kiss, to love. 

I could get lost in him, I could believe every whispered word of endearment.

I had to be gentle with him, helping him wash and teasing him while I did. He wanted the teasing though, pushing my hands away to do the same to me, until we were both shivering with need, not even feeling the air cooling our wet bodies, the heat between us keeping us warm. 

Dan’s eyes were locked with mine as I rode him, slow and sweet, time was lost as we moved together, wanting the contact, needing that bond between our bodies, that raw affirmation of life. 

We were both crying when we finally fell apart, not wanting it to end but unable to hold off any longer, clinging to one another, eyes still joined, not even trying to blink back the silent tears.

Falling asleep then might have been nice, but there was no rest for our exhausted bodies. Dan drank the birch bark tea and we had a strange sickly sweet apple mash “soup” since I wanted to use the frozen apples before we used up all the dried food.

Fire freshly stocked, wrapped back up in one another Dan whispered how he tried his hand at making a snare for rabbits, having seen some out the window. I spoke of the orchard, how there were still many apples hanging frozen from the trees and possibly more under the snow. I didn’t know how long they would last us but we wouldn’t need to worry of scurvy or starvation for at least a while. 

At least long enough for Dan to heal so we could continue on I hoped. We had to be one, at most two days out from some kind of settlement. The world couldn’t have gone to hell so fast that they would reject us…

And if it had then we wouldn’t stand a chance anyway, at least we could hope for a quicker death knowing we’d made it that far. 

——  
January 22  
——

I awoke early the next day feeling strangely refreshed. It was nice being warm, clean-ish, being able to eat my fill of hot apple mash.

Dan stayed in bed, getting up to eat, drink more tea, and then roll over to go back to sleep. He’d pushed himself a little too hard the day before, washing and if we were being honest, maybe we’d gone a little overboard together but for as drained as he was it invigorated me. 

Back out in the snow I hacked at a few logs piling them up at the back before heading out through the trees picking apples as I wandered up closer by the road picking a direction and walking. I didn’t want to get too far, not just yet, I just wanted to scope out where we’d been, and where we were still going to go. We’d lost most of our maps, the details to our plans, but I still had a general mental map and a vague idea of where we might be.

The walk was easy, moving at a gentle slant downward until on the road I could see a bridge, heading closer I wrangled my way down to the water under it.

From the loos of the banks this river probably swelled deeply in the spring, icy run-off heading towards some lake or another, but now the water was too low, the ice too thick to kick through, and even if I brought the axe I doubted there would be any fish here to catch.

So used to quiet, so caught up in my own thoughts, climbing up the side of the hill to get back to the road I nearly fell back onto the ice, jumping at the loud echoing bang of a car driving over the bridge. I laid there, listening to the engine as it echoed off into the distance, clinging to the snow, shaking as my heart pounded in my ears. 

Were they still hunting us? The car had come from the direction the farm was at…

Scrambling up the riverbank it took me a while, but I raced as hard as I could back to the house, I’d been gone for not that long, but more than long enough for a car to pull up, for Dan to be located, for them to catch the weakened man and-

Busting into the house I felt like my heart was going to explode. I fell to my knees and scrambled toward the mattress thrown even further into my panic when Dan wasn’t there. Thankfully he came rushing out of the toilet as soon as I started crying for him, scooping me into his arms, not complaining at all of the cold as I forced myself against his chest shaking and babbling with worry. 

I either lost time, or passed out then. I went from burning pain and unable to breath with how scared I was, to sitting in Dan’s lap on the sofa, my jacket and bag off, my boots placed at the door, while he rocked me back and forth humming gently. 

“Hey there Lovely. You okay now?” He asked as I moved, childishly wrapping one of his curls around my finger, feeling strangely calmed by it.

“Yeah.”  
“What was that about?” 

He waited, patient for the answer while I gathered my thoughts.  
“There was a car and I- I just got so scared thinking, thinking it was them, thinking that they’d come here.”

He hushed me, rocking again side to side, making me realize that just speaking was getting me worked up again. 

“Was- Was it them?” He asked once I’d calmed down again, trying but somewhat failing to keep the small thread of fear out of his own voice.  
“I don’t know, I didn’t see them. I just heard it and… I dunno kinda freaked out.”

I was a little embarrassed by it now, getting all panicked just because I had heard a car, but if anyone understood it was Dan. There was no need to have a conversation of “What if” on this one, we’d been burned far too often to have hope that we would find safety from anyone but ourselves. 

Calmed I dumped my backpack and went back out for the little bit of daylight I had left, sticking close to the house, picking and digging into the snow of just the nearby trees clearing them of any apples or low hanging branches that would be of use to us. Dan even came out for a bit, hauling my bag inside and bringing it out to me to reload, standing with me and just idly chatting about this or that. 

I was grateful for it, calm seeping back into me knowing he was there, and that we were safe here.

——  
January 23  
——

I got moving later than usual the next day, not wanting to leave the perceived safety of the house, and it wasn’t like Dan was in any rush to let me get out of bed either. 

The apple gruel mixed with the birdseed and pulped birch wood made for filling meals even if they were an acquired taste, but they were hot and left our stomachs full, which made it easier to give myself the excuse to crawl back into bed and fall asleep next to Dan. 

I didn’t let myself completely go the whole day, heading out to gather more wood, strip down a few more trees of any fruit, but the outdoors scared me too much to wander far.

“Hey, did you use the snare I made yesterday?” Dan asked when I came back inside, done with the cold and the work I could force myself to do today.

In my panic I had completely forgotten. 

Dan had made a snare and I’d set it up while walking. A fair distance from the house too, not wanting to spook rabbits away from it and even though it looked flimsy I did actually trust it to work. We’d played with making them enough times and it seemed functional.

“Yeah I set it up… I’ll check it tomorrow.”  
“Y’know I’ve never actually eaten rabbit before. I head it’s good though.”  
“Fingers crossed that it’s better than this.”

——  
January 24  
——

I’d told him I would go check it and I was a woman of my word. 

Out I went, backpack in tow, hoping to gather more birch bark, maybe try some pine today as well, it wasn’t in the book of herbalism we had but I was pretty certain people could eat pine bark, or at least the sap? I remembered my grandmother talking about how she would chew it as a child so that must have been a thing to help settle the hungry stomachs of those too poor for regular meals as she had been growing up.

Other than wracking my brain for old information like that I tried not to think too hard about my family, my Grandmother had passed away long ago but the last thing I wanted was to get sentimental today about people I would most likely never see again.

Or to let those dark thoughts just behind knowing that I would never see them again wash over me leading me into giving up.

I wasn’t familiar with where I was going but considering my tracks were the only ones out here it wasn’t like there were many options. I was at the edge of the treeline, where I was sure I put the snare, I could see the indent of where I’d been kneeling but the snare wasn’t there. 

Light scraping lines were in the snow, rolled out dents where the rabbit or whatnot that had gotten caught struggled to get the wires off, and dragged it away with it.

I grumbled, following the tracks as best I could, they were pretty obvious, the animal would stop to struggle often enough, the sticks that were supposed to hold it to the ground dragging along instead marking its path. 

I wished I knew more about tracking so that I could tell if it was today or yesterday, or even the day before that when the animal got caught. If it had a three day headstart I’d probably give up. But every time I was close to losing the trail there’d be a deeper mark, another clue, taunting me to keep chasing after it so at least I could get the snare itself back if not a fancier dinner.

I didn’t feel like I’d walked all that far but maybe it was the entertaining thrill of the chase that kept my mind occupied over how long I’d been moving for, looking up and around I realized I’d left the orchard and had made my way through an open field filled with snow covered haystacks a barn not too far in the distance. 

Making my position in the snow so I could come back to this point and try to keep going after the potential rabbit and lost snare I made my way toward the barn. It looked like it was one that was in use, or at least not a few hundred years old and ready to fall over, so I did have some hope that maybe there would be something of use in it. Grain, some kind of animal feed, maybe even actual cows.

I wasn’t sure what I’d do if it was filled with cows but I had tits, I could figure an udder out.

Same principal right?

Coming around the side of the barn there were a lot of tracks all through the snow, which made me scuttle a little closer to the barn wall. People tracks were all over the place, along with car and tractors, it made me nervous but with this many footprints and vehicles it must have been a regular farm.

Getting around the corner of the barn and seeing a bullseye with arrows sticking out of it I reassessed that it was “somewhat a regular farm?” trying to calm my nerves.

Running now might not be useful, if someone was here they might notice the sudden movement or noise of me making a break for it across the yard, if no one was here then I was giving up an opportunity to find food, maybe more medication for Dan, anything to help us keep scraping by.

I found the side door to the barn and went inside, thankful that it wasn’t locked but I supposed what would be the point of that this far away from any kind of town. It was dark inside, only a little light coming in through the thin slats in between the wooden walls and the open window up in the hay loft. I was mostly looking around by touch and dim shapes. there was a large tractor in here, probably for cutting the hay, the word “thresher” finally popping into my head as a more accurate description of what this thing was called. Feeling my way around it there was also a pickup truck next to it, I could tell the colour was dark, that it was old, and from the feel of it, rather rusted. The doors were unlocked but there were no keys in it. Feeling around the wheels I was hoping to find them hidden away near the truck, I’d seen people do that in movies enough times but people in Canada I guess were getting more paranoid, not wanting their kids or some thief to take their equipment for a joy ride. 

I froze while on my hands and knees searching for keys that weren’t there when I heard a vehicle pull up, and car doors slam.

“-How the hell should I know?”  
“Look we’re going to have to take what we’ve got and bring it in, it doesn’t matter what we make there’s no money in this-“ 

The angry voices trailed off with a door slam leaving me shaking on the ground scrambling to roll under the truck when I heard another engine rolling in. 

There was more talking, but I wasn’t really listening anymore, the sound of the voice echoed in me freezing me to the core. 

A dark place, a voice echoing, “There’s no one fucking here!” crunching boots as the light flashed again.

I blinked, no flashing before my eyes, no sound, it was dark but the kind of dark that came with nightfall not with the blind lightless cave. 

How long had I laid there too afraid to move I didn’t know but it was a very long time for the sun to of gone down, but it wasn’t quiet yet. There was still music playing from the house, occasionally the sounds of shouting, doors opening and shutting. Occasionally I could hear another car pull up, the crunch of snow as people walked around the farmhouse I was hiding in, low murmured conversations that I didn’t even want to know what they were talking about but could sense the escalating tension around me. 

I needed to get out of here.

With a few deep steadying breaths I slowly crawled out from my hiding place, my eyes had adjusted enough to the dark that I could make out more than I had when I’d first come in, enough to see some tools sitting on a bench and grabbing a fair sized wrench more to make myself feel better than to be of any actual use.

With my hand on the door was when I heard the first gunshots.

At first I didn’t believe what I was hearing, the music was loud enough, maybe it was part of that, but then there was screaming, return fire, I dropped the wrench and scrambled back, falling onto my ass while I crawled back under the truck I’d been hiding under. 

Another few shots and I felt a warmth spreading along my legs and gut, I closed my eyes and covered my ears, humming to myself softly, I knew I needed to be quiet but I also knew that the humming was the only thing keeping me from screaming. 

Forehead against the dirt I could dimly hear someone cursing, the slam of car doors, the grit of wheels pulling away. 

Even more dimly I could hear someone screaming for help.

Still I didn’t move, frozen in my own piss and fear.


	6. Hungriest in the Spring

——  
January 25  
——

She was able to crawl out from under the truck as the first calls of the crows came to her waking her up from her fearfully frozen state. She hadn’t slept, but was still not entirely awake either, a state of both there and not, caught spiritually somewhere in the ether while her body went through the motions of life.

Moving slowly, limbs stiff from cold and lack of movement, she could see the red splattered in the snow, a trail of it leading from the open door of the house to the empty space where a car once was. There were a few cars parked here still, including the familiar truck forever embedded in her mind as the one that had started too many fresh problems when its drivers tried to kill her and Dan. 

Had she been warmer, had her body not been tapped out of any ability to produce more adrenaline, she would have run. But now she was numb to all fear or thoughts of anything except the need to be warmer, and before her was a house with an open door.

She went inside, moving like a zombie across the yard, shuffling inward. Even with the door open it was warm inside, much warmer than it had been in the barn. Clearly the last person to leave hadn’t exactly had time to turn off the heater, or the lights…

Or clean up the mess of bodies.

It was a mess, even without the carnage the place didn’t look good to begin with, beer cans and garbage piled up everywhere, old pizza boxes and takeout containers kicked into corners, clothing that may have been clean or dirty stacked up or left on the floor. 

Drugs and money sat on the table, not a lot of either, but enough that it must have started some kind of fight, two bodies were at the table, one in a chair, the other knocked out of theirs. 

She looked around the room, wandering into the kitchen, opening the fridge to see nothing but mustard, ketchup, and more beers. The freezer had ice cream sandwiches, and while she was cold, she was still hungry and numb enough to grab the box, inhaling one while she stood there, the pain of the frozen treat waking her up a little better to her surroundings. 

Not enough to do the logical thing, which was run away, but enough to bring the box with her while she slowly ate a second sandwich looking through the rest of the house. A black trail from the living room leading down the hall caught her attention, it lead to a door that was shut. 

Tossing the empty box aside I felt more focused now, a part of me coming back to the here and now enough that I could hear some noises on the other side of the door. Once upon a time in a land far far away when I had been a teacher and lived an ordinary life I enjoyed watching zombie movies, and the rasping breathing and trail of blood was all things that I would yell at the screen for people to run away from. 

I suppose I wouldn’t even be able to criticize those people again considering I did the same stupid thing they did and open the door.

No zombie laid there but instead some kid, leaning up against the wall, head against his chest, gun limp in his hand. 

The trail of blood lead to him and I swallowed hard to keep the ice cream I’d had on the inside of my body. 

I—

—She felt that split again, where she wasn’t really here and her body was moving on its own. Getting closer she touched the boy, he was probably 15 or so, skinny and tall, she was surprised by the rise and fall in his chest however soft and stilted it was. He’d gone the whole night bleeding and was still here, clinging to life. 

“I don’t know how to help you…” She whispered the tips of her gloves touching his wound, then his cheek, finally pulling one off to actually check his fluttering pulse she could barely find against his neck. 

Pulling the gun from his hand she held his, sitting there as the sun rose, sitting with this unknown boy, barely a man, while he finally went still. 

She left then, an even greater mess than when she’d gone in. Her mind far away, knees stained with blood, clothing reeking of piss and death. Stumbling across the field, following her own haphazard trail back to the orchard, back home. 

—

I couldn’t remember much of the walk back by the time I arrived, honestly everything was a blur before now and I was still half dreaming as I stumbled up to the door and let myself in. Everything hurt, I felt dizzy and sick, I didn’t know which way was up or down anymore.

It would have been nice for Dan to hug me once I came inside, for him to take care of me and assure me that everything was alright, that we were safe.

Instead I got rammed into, slammed back into the door as 130 pounds of bones and skin fell sobbing on top of me, dragging us both to the ground.

He reeked of stale liquor and wouldn’t allow me to push him away, his hot breath right against my neck while he babbled, curses and thanks, sobbing garbled words but I understood the theme of what he was trying to say.

I’d left.

He was scared.

For as terrified as I’d been the night before he was too. Maybe he’d heard the gunshots in the distance, maybe he hadn’t, all he knew was that it was dark and I wasn’t home and when the sun rose he’d snapped and started drinking. 

I didn’t fight him, not as he cried, not as he pulled me in, trying to reach me in the only way he knew how in his muddled state. Celebrating life at the end of our world, I had been gone, he’d thought he’d lost everything. He needed to know that I was there, that I was real, that I was not leaving. I was a part of him and he’d felt that loss so I let him do what he needed to in order to feel whole again.

To help myself also feel that.

I felt dirty after, not from him but from the memories in my mind closing in, the ice keeping them at bay melting with the heat of the room. 

The blood, the death.

Dan didn’t wake up as I rolled closer to the fire, scrubbing myself clean until my skin was raw and red, until the light faded from the windows, until even Dan woke up, groaning with a hangover, and finally realized the obsessive nature of my scrubbing, pulling me away from the fire, holding me steady, letting me have my turn to break down.

Nails dug into his back, the heels of my feet against his calves, clinging to him as though I could hide inside of him, pulling him on top of me like some heavy blanket. It was my turn to talk, soft inconsistent fragments of words. One theme found in the mix of them.

We weren’t safe.

We had to go.

——  
January 26  
——

We didn’t move the next day. 

Dan’s hangover was still really bad, he hadn’t eaten since I hadn’t been there and once he’d started drinking his body didn’t have the resources to deal with it. I was up with him, washing his body of the alcoholic sweat while he shook and moaned his fever returning from the abuse he’d done to himself. 

The last of the apples and birch bark, the rosehips and birdseed went into a overcooked gruel that he probably kept down one of every three bites. It was a good thing I was more emotionally numb than not, the only feelings I had other than a sense of obligation towards caring for him was fear and anger. We needed to go, there had been a massacre just a farm away and who the hell knew where the person who had done it had gone, when they would be back, if they would have noticed the added set of boot tracks in the snow leading across the field right to our front door. 

I was tempted, ever so lightly, to go back, find keys, steal one of the cars left parked there, and I was almost angry at myself because I was too scared to get up and even do that. Not that Dan would have let me, I couldn’t even go outside to get firewood without hearing him call my name horsely, I had to sing when I went into the toilet to keep him calm. As understanding as I was trying to be of his illness and anxiety I was frustrated by it because we didn’t have time to deal with it. I was running on adrenaline and survival instinct alone and that was telling me to get out of here while the going was still good.

I’d give him today, give it to myself as well, and hoped to hell that we wouldn’t regret it.

——  
January 27  
——

“Dan get up.” 

It was do or die today. 

I hadn’t been able to gather food, I hadn’t been able to chop wood, Dan’s condition didn’t get much better but at least it didn’t get worse from where he’d woken up with a hangover. But I knew this wasn’t a hangover anymore. 

Infection was relapsing in him and without painkillers or proper nutritious food or even vitamins there was no way he was going to recover a second time. We needed to get to a town and find actual help, or at least some legitimate supplies from a real pharmacy.

We couldn’t stay here any longer that was for sure.

“Dan either get up or I am fucking leaving you here.”

He’d been dragging his feet, tired, cranky, sullen at being forced to get up, get dressed, move. The threat that I would leave him got him moving though, his eyes going wide and scared, misting with tears that I yelled at him to keep him from crying, to bully him into movement. 

Maybe I felt a little bad for it, but we needed to go and I couldn’t carry him. After a second night with almost no sleep, blood filled nightmares crawling over me every time I closed my eyes, I was running on fumes just as much as he was. 

I lead and he followed, the day silent except the crunch of snow beneath our boots and the occasional call from the crows. We walked, following my path towards the road, choosing to walk along the pavement instead of continue to break through the snow, it was faster that way. 

Passing over the bridge I felt a small chill go through me, a memory of something worse scratching at me, but we went over quickly, the clanging of our feet echoing in the open space underneath them, before returning to the quiet.

We walked along the fence of what must have been the property of the farm where the bodies now were. I kept an eye on the land there, like something would come chasing after us from the house, like a gunshot would be hidden behind one of the stacks of hay. 

It was quiet, no zombies shambling towards us, no cars racing up behind us, just silent.

Like a grave.

Somehow I didn’t feel assured of our safety with that.

We kept walking, my head was down, just one foot in front of the other, listening to make sure I heard nothing more or less than the sound of Dan’s steps behind me, only stopping when I heard him stop as well, letting out a soft grunt.

Looking back he was staring at something off the side, following his gaze I saw a road sign. 

Cinder Hills, 25km, pictures spouting chain gas stations and fast food joints were advertised on the sign.

I would need to re-check our map to make sure of where we were, but this was a very, very good sign that at least we were going the right way. 

“C’mon we’re close.” My voice was a harsh crackle but Dan obeyed it, falling into step behind me as we kept moving, out pace picking up ever so slightly with the excitement of finding a place. 

While the thoughts of people being there was crossing my mind, mostly I was thinking of the last ‘town’ we had been in, the gas station and cabin on the lake, the warmth of the home we had there, the bed, the bath, the heat.

Mostly the food.

My mouth watered thinking of the fresh fish we’d caught on the lake, the way it melted with the rice and wine. Even the dried fruits paired with the sharp cheddar of macaroni and cheese mixes. 

A few days of eating tree bark and birdseed, all that was keeping me going right now was the thoughts of beef jerky and canned tuna.

I was so focused on the idea of finding any kind of a store to raid that I’d stopped listening to the world around me, Dan grabbing my arm startled me but not enough to fight him as I was dragged quickly off the road and into the ditch.   
I could hear what spooked him now, it was still far away but the sound of an engine speeding along the highway.

We hit the ground, low in the ditch, covered by snow, huddled close, listening as the car got closer. Dan’s arm went over me, his body shielding mine as the vehicle roared past us, thankfully not slowing or stopping. We laid there a while longer before looking up, watching the truck continue along the road in the distance. 

It was a different one from the truck that had come after us but that didn’t mean anything, I knew that there was more than one person and more than one car involved, and who knew if the people who had attacked us were the ones that were dead at the farmhouse or were the ones who had gotten away?

Or maybe none of them were even involved and this chaos was just the state of the world now? Still the truck was driving towards where we now wanted to go.

I looked at Dan, he looked tired, worn out. He stared vacantly after the truck obviously not thinking the same thing I was, if it was safe to follow or not.  
I supposed it didn’t matter, if the truck was going to the town and it was overrun by people who had the same mindset as the ones who shot Dan we were screwed, but if we went back to the farm we were also screwed.

“Faster death.” I mumbled Dan’s head barely tilting towards me, I took his good hand, giving it a squeeze and started walking again, I was tired too, not tired enough to lay down and totally give up, but tired enough I didn’t want to fight anymore, did’t care to hide or cower away. If death was coming I would embrace it, and if it wasn’t then all I could do was keep moving forward.

We crossed another bridge, not bothering to hide when we heard another car coming, only moving when it honked its horn at us. It was coming from in front of us instead of behind, a minivan instead of a tuck, we were too tired to even wave at it, hoping that maybe it would stop but it didn’t, instead slowing to swerve around us, horn blaring and I could only imagine the driver swearing. We paused to watch it go, speeding off into the distance. 

They were actually speeding too, looking up I could see we were standing next to a sign that was telling people to slow to 50 as they were coming up on the town limits, there was no way she was going under 100.

I could see ahead a flicker of light, dusk was starting to fall and we were just passing a snow covered sign with “Welcome to Cinder Hills” on it, in the far off distance the orange glow of street lamps were just starting to come on, snow covered buildings alongside them.  
From the snow and our position it was hard to make out just what was up ahead, and we were too tired to run, but we moved as fast as we could.

There was a large building to our left, cars parked in front of it, one pulling out onto the highway but heading away from us, further into the town, that was two vehicles, which gave us an astronomically higher chance of running into someone who would be safe, who would help us, more people meant less of them had to be horrible right?

There were two cars left in front of the building, a sign above the place with “Cinder Hills Hotel” and a little glowing one in the window stating “Vacancy” and “Open” sending us rushing as fast as we could towards the door shoving our way into the tiny lobby. 

Even though we’d barely gone faster than a slow jog that was enough to leave us breathless as we lurched inside, the heat of the room felt like diving into an ocean of comfort, the bright lights making me blink owlishly almost forgetting that yes, electricity was a thing that existed.

Dan’s hand landed heavy on my shoulder, pulling me back to him so he could lean on me, unable to keep upright on his own any longer, both of us shaking with anticipation as we listened to someone in the back noisily making their way to the front calling out a cheery “Just a moment”

Their face of hospitality dropped and I had to give them points for professionalism when it slapped back on in a frozen approximation of politeness, I could only imagine what we looked like, shaking and dirty, clinging to one another, mismatched clothing that was stained with blood, soot, fear…

“How can I—“ She started slowly as Dan let out a choked sound, his legs buckling, I was barely able to slow his fall to the ground, dragged down with him. The woman stood there frozen until my soft dry voice finally found the volume to reach her ears.

“Help, help us, please help us.”

I clung to Dan, breathless, crying, and begging.

“Help.”


	7. My life is over and I couldn’t be happier

Day 4

I wondered idly if this was weird, watching him sleep.

I’d done it before, and I knew he’d done it before to me too, but that seemed different. 

Like a dream from a long time ago, something that was quickly becoming fuzzy and not real.

Or maybe this was the dream?

It felt like a dream. Like it was all happening to someone else, some other person screaming and wailing for help in a hotel lobby, the poor clerk calling the police.

It was a small town, it had taken forever for the police to get there, for them to pull that woman away from Dan.

I’d calmed down by then… She’d calmed down by then, that woman who was me but not me, it was like I was standing next to her watching it all, watching as the police checked Dan’s pulse, shaking her to ask if he had allergies or medical conditions, throwing questions at her, at me, that I couldn’t answer. 

In hindsight I felt stupid, my vision focused only on Dan’s unmoving body, mumbling incoherently that we needed help.

No wonder that once an ambulance finally arrived my first stop was getting tossed into the psychiatric side of the hospital while Dan was whisked away to the ICU.

Thankfully after a check over, some nice calming medication, and a good nights rest, by the time the police came back the next morning I was more coherent and able to ramble through what had happened to us, who we were, report the crimes against us, and the bodies still out there.

I was left with a police officer on the door to my privet room.

To keep me safe.

To keep me from running.

Not that I could.

My feet were worse than I’d thought with the frostbite and continued exposure, I was malnourished, sick, overworked, stressed, really it was sheer willpower and stubbornness that was keeping me going.

I needed surgery to peel back layers of infection and dead skin, to remove my smallest toe that was beyond saving. Dan needed more that what this small town hospital could give and once the police had checked out enough of our story to realize that we really were two of the survivors of AC 161 I’d been sedated heavily to get me into a helicopter (the moment a flight was mentioned to me I’d protested ever so slightly) and we were flown to a much larger hospital in Winnipeg.

I didn’t have an officer parked outside of my door there. 

And with my slight celebrity status one of the nurses had been kind and understanding enough to wheel me into Dan’s room once he was out of surgery.

His hand was beyond fucked up.

The nurse prefaced everything she told me with “I shouldn’t be telling you this but…” and thankfully then answered my questions about him.

His condition was stable, thankfully, his hand infected and while cauterizing a wound is not a smart thing to ever do it was understandable given our situation and possibly saved his life although the infection from cauterizing it was what was killing him as well. One, maybe two more days without medical attention and he wouldn’t have made it.

His ring finger needed to be amputated, the infection had been controlled somewhat by my care but not enough, his body too ravaged with hunger and fever, he had been on a razors edge for a while but was stable now.

So I watched him sleep.

Every day for months we could have died at any moment. The cold, the starvation, the people, the animals, the dark depression that had built up in each of us.

But we made it here.

Dan’s hand tightened around mine, a full body shudder running through him as his eyes opened and he gave a light gasp as if waking up from a nightmare.

He’d awoken a few times, but always the same way, always confused, panicked, fighting to come back to consciousness.

“Hey, hey I’m here.” This was the other reason the nurses had let me in, that he would call, ask, even scream for me until they put him back to sleep, at least this way he would settle on his own, his body was already too hurt to be dealing with any further stress and the staff didn’t want to deal with it either.

“Where?”  
“Hospital.”  
“What?”  
“Police.”  
“We?” His voice caught, squeezing my hand tighter his eyes a little wild and on edge as he looked around the room and back at my face not quite able to believe what he was seeing.

“Yeah. We made it.”

——  
Day 5  
——

My parents had gotten here first.

They somewhat lived closer, at least being Canadian they were contacted first, no need to go through embassy or long distance to send out the call. I’d been awake and was able to give their information to the first set of police we’d come across before they sent us to Winnipeg, and while a flight would have sped up the process I had begged over the phone for them to NOT fly. 

A deep phobia now firmly installed to never be or let anyone I cared about be airborne again.

I could hear some commotion in the hall but it was Dan giving a little jump and a startled “Oh sorry” that really woke me up from my doze when my parents had walked in.

It felt like an explosion.

The hugs, the crying, the light interrogation that Dan got considering how they’d caught us snuggled up in the same bed.

Mostly it was crying. 

Their daughter had come back from the dead.

My brother and cousin had come as well, the other cousin who was supposed to be getting married was also driving down, but for that first day they were here it was tears and shouts, laughing and more crying, kisses and hugs that all left me exhausted.

I was alive.

——  
Day 7  
——

Dan’s family arrived.

I was glad that my parents had prepared us, gotten us used to the increase in noise because while I thought my family was loud his entire family, sister, sons, brother in law, mother, father, grandmother, friends, everyone had packed up and came to collect Dan.

Not that he could leave with them, still too sick to leave he was better, and getting stronger every day.

His hand hardly left mine even with nephews tugging at him and his parents and friends talking so quickly between their tears of joy to catch him up on everything that he missed.

Their son had come back from the dead.

He’d cried when my family came, he cried when his family came, he cried again that night when the two of us were finally alone, the hospital staff had given up on giving us separate rooms, instead moving us together since we both had anxiety about being apart and with the occasional person from the media or police officer needing to see us we were easier to take care of if we were just together.

When I heard the familiar coughing sound in the middle of the night I slid out of my bed and limped into his, letting him cling to me with ragged choked sobs, his fingers digging into my back painfully as the weight of simply being alive hit him.

I think it was then that I really woke up from my dream state realizing as he did that we’d made it.

The world hadn’t fallen apart, our families were really here, we were alive and going home.

It was finally over.

Ignoring our injuries we pulled out IV’s and tangled ourselves together, trying to fill in the void of cold still in us, trying to contain all our joy that was tearing us apart.

It was finally over.

When the dawn came and nurses had to peel us apart, they couldn’t get us to let go of one another’s hands, giving up and pushing our beds closer, reapplying bandages, sedating us so that we could rest like our bodies desperately needed to, our hands still gripping the other tight enough to break because-

It was finally over.

And we’d made it.


End file.
